Up Valley Vintners

After a day of fending off hard-​sell wine club offers at Napa wineries, it was refreshing to try some small batch wines and unwind. This is a small tasting room, but it was very relaxing. All in all, it was just right.

We had a great time here. The wine was good and they have a great patio out back with live music on Saturdays at least. We bought a bottle and accidentally drank it all. we stayed a couple hours and it was a really good time. Dennis who is a folk singer played beautiful music and kept us entertained. I definitely recommend a stop in while in Calistoga. We enjoyed the hindsight ²⁰⁄₂₀. A delicious blend we will be back to buy more!

Nice selcection of local wine… Great back porch. .wine and music what could be better on a cool Saturday Night in August? Only reason I did not give it 5 stars is there is NO food… they let you bring your own.

Unfortunately I can’t remember everything my husband and I tried here but overall, we enjoyed the selection of local, small-​production wines. The tasting room is on the main drag of Calistoga and features wines from winemakers too small to have their own tasting rooms. You miss the winery tour but if you’re just interested in trying some great, hard-​to-​find reds, I highly recommend this place. We were the only ones in the tasting room that afternoon and had a great chat with our pourer. I’m pretty sure he gave us more than what was on the list – I got distracted by our conversation and lost count. He also gave us good recommendations for lunch and another tasting room (as well as a free pass for two at the room). All in all, we enjoyed the wine and the service and will definitely be back next time we’re in town.

A very pleasant surprise. You know the story. Avoid tasting rooms because you want to be amongst the vines blah, blah. Except we rarely, if ever, do any more than look at them when at a vineyard. So we walked into Up Valley with mediocre expectations that were well and truly blown out of the water. On the white wine side, my gf and I aren’t generally huge sav blanc fans but there were two, Barlow and Kenefick Ranch, that were stellar, and $ 18 and $ 24, respectively, pretty good value. Dry, some fruit but not overwhelming, perfect picnic wines. On the red side we were then suitably impressed with the 2006 cab franc from Kenefick. Again, this isn’t a grape that features high on our list but boy does KR do it justice. The ’06 is huge yet subtle, and at 7 yrs old it still tastes like it’s an infant. (No chance of the bottle we bought aging, it went over dinner two days later.) Seems we’re KR fans. Thank you Up Valley for introducing us. We will be back.

In seven tastings over a few days in Calistoga, this was the best experience we had! Gena was accommodating, knowledgeable, and friendly. The Tofanelli Zinfandel and the Zacharele Pinot Noir were exceptional. Great laid-​back, yet sophisticated atmosphere.

Only got to try two wines as part of the passport tasting. That was too bad since the lady just told us that she had a lot of bottles open. I guess they were off limits. Had we tried more we might have actually found some we liked.

We went to Up Valley on 01÷07÷12 as part of the Calistoga Winter in the Wineries Passport. Place was very clean and had expensive décor. They had six wines they pour, but you are only allowed to choose two to try. Very disappointing.

Pure gold. I’m always a little leery of hitting these conglomerates in the classic enoteca style on the local town square. There is an abundance of mediocre wines at ridiculous prices in Northern California. But, I’ve also found some real quality wines sold dirt cheap, basically made out of someone’s garage. So when I saw Tofanelli on the sign – who I’m familiar with back when they sold Zin grapes to Turley and my beloved Neyers – I was sucked in.
Indeed, the wines here were excellent. Kenefick Ranch, Envy, Tofanelli, Barlow, Zacherle are well represented. The reds are big and bold, mainly Bordeaux blends. They are well represented by non-​Chardonnay blends on the white side. A tasting is reasonably priced and has a more than generous amount of offerings. Seriously, I don’t mind paying the small guys and for this quality of stuff when it comes to tasting.
The folks behind the counter were really friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable, and I enjoyed chatting them up a bit about the wines. This place is definitely on my go-​to wine list for Napa.
And they ship… which was the less-​than-​perfect part of the experience. I needed the wine within 12 days of my purchase because of a travel obligation. Because they deal with multiple parties, they couldn’t do it without a steep 2-​Day Fedex charge.