Oakville Travel Guide

Far Niete was rather famous for producing a very rich malolactic fermented style Chardonnay that was bottled in a very ornate package. In the 1980's, Far Niete sold their wine for $30- per bottle, a very high price at the time. The wine was indeed very good, but many serious wine consumers found it oversold in terms of quality, especially given the fancy bottle. However, I like to keep a bottle around to wow friends who are less serious about wine, from time to time. Gil NIckel cultivated a sense of secrecy, making wine tours "by appointment only" exclusive to the wine industry only, and so raised the stakes for other wineries to raise their bottle prices and sense of exclusivity at the same time. The winery building has plenty of history and is worth the visit as it's not just another stone building. Check out the website for more details. The winery is now open to the public, "by appointment only", but be sure to be ready to part with some cash for this tour.

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If one takes the Oakville Crossroads toward Silverado Trail, Groth is on the left side just before Silverado Trail. Groth is a fine producer of Sauvignon Blanc, in particular, but also makes very accessible Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and occasionally Merlot. The winery claims that their best wine is the Cabernet Sauvignon, so try the current releases which should soon be released from a vineyard replanting program started in 1999. The architecture of the winery building is also unique and continues the trend of the Oakville Bench area to set the winery well back off the road and into the center of the vineyards. Like Mondavi, Groth choose to design a mission-revival style building, although the effect is much more ornate in terms of the trim and thus quite different in effect. The website is quite good, providing details of the vineyard replanting. They also have nice artwork with viticultural themes at the winery.

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Up the Oakville Grade is a winery that was originally a cooperative between Mondavi and the French wine company of the same name. Vichon has very pleasant "restaurant style" wines, and was originally only sold to restaurants. The white wines are carefully crafted and generally well balanced toward the leaner side. The red wines are soft and ready to drink. At one time, this was a good place to picnic, but one had to buy a bottle to use the table. The view across the valley from Vichon is spectacular, providing a good reason alone to visit this winery. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, I couldn't locate a website for Vichon.

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The basic background information for this winery is on my introductory page, although most reader's familiar with the valley will already know the legendary status of this winery. More information is available at the link below, providing both history and tours/tasting hours. The winery is a huge facility by Napa Valley standards, although Mondavi actually has larger winemaking and bottling plants in Lodi California. Also, the exclusive Opus I wine is made at a special facility, also located in Oakville. In any case, the tour of the Mondavi winery is very professional and one of the better production tours. Novice wine consumers can learn a lot here, and so I highly recommend starting with a tour here before going to the boutique wineries. The winery is also a center for music and other entertainment events from time to time.