Chateau St Jean

Great experience! Our guide Butch was awesome! Helpful, very friendly and knowledgeable. Wine was great. Beautiful winery!

Visited Château St. Jean on a girls’ Sonoma weekend. Wine tasting with Butch was fun and relaxing. Grounds were beautiful. Wine delicious and Butch was very attentive and informative. We all left happy with boxes of wine and vow to return!

What an experience! If you are nearby for SuperBowl 50 or any reason, make the trip to Château St. Jean. The wines are fabulous. The grounds (especially for wine club members) are amazing. We had a fabulous time and you will, too. Why? Because besides the wine & the locale what separates this winery experience is the PEOPLE. Mike, Butch, and esp. Gerlinda will spoil you, educate you, and help you remember your Somoma Wine trip for years to come! Thanks y’all!

This was out last stop before heading home. So Glad we came! Absolutely beautiful grounds. We bought a bottle of wine and sat outside enjoying the nice summer weather. One of the employees asked if we wanted a picture so he took US to the froumt of the tasting room, placed a towel on the steps and gave us a large bottle of wine to pose with. Great service, lovely wine and breathtaking grounds. Will be coming back for sure!

This is the only winery in Sonoma that my husband and I are members of. The grounds are amazing. The staff are welcoming, especially in the reserve room which is where we normally go and the wine next disappoints.

Waited 15 min at the tasting counter which wasn’t terribly crowded. We were ignored by two different servers (moved locations to try and get service– that didn’t help). Didn’t get to taste so can’t comment on quality but would not try and go back.

I have been here before but after having Gary help me out with his wittiness and attentiveness, I’ll be coming back every weekend for some more of their delicious CSJ Pinot. Cheers you won’t be disappointed!

Highly recommend the reserve private tasting with Bev Durakovic. She is extremely knowledgeable, professional and fun. My girlfriend and I had the best experience of all the vineyards we toured in Sonoma. Lovely old historic château with stunning views of the vineyards. The Cing Cepages and 8555 Cuvée are c’est magnifique and should not be missed. We cannot wait for our return to Sonoma or the cases of wine we ordered.

I recently planned an event to celebrate my girlfriend’s birthday by bringing a group of 15 or so friends from SF to Château St. Jean to start a day of wine tasting in the Sonoma area.
The staff at CSJ was so great: the up-​front planning was easy, the day-​of support, talent, accommodations and service was top-​notch. We ended up having an amazing day there: a tented outdoor space was set up to accommodate our group, complete with table, chairs, couches, tables, a heater and a beautiful chandelier hung from the ceiling. The staff was amazing — helped me purchase and prepare a ton of food/​wine bought onsite at their deli. They went so far out of their way, it was terrific! They were flexible, friendly, and suggested different ways we could use the space and enjoy the available amenities. The wine tasting kept everyone’s interest and Gary (the gentleman who led it) did a great job of matching our interests and pace throughout the whole five wine flight. Just awesome!
Moving 15 people around in wine country is no small feat. The staff at CSJ — all of them from the tasting room to the planners — were an absolute pleasure to work with. I can’t say enough good things about the team, the wine and the venue. We will be back!

Adorable place to go wine tasting– either with your girlfriends or on a romantic date. I went up on a Saturday afternoon with a group of 8 ladies. We grabbed lunch from the deli (selective choice of bread and cheese plus a few salads and pre-​packaged sides), 3 bottles of wine, and parked up on one of the picnic benches in the beautiful courtyard overlooking the vineyard. The food selection from the deli was minimal (especially if you are a vegetarian), but the wine and outdoor beauty was unparalleled. There were a few bachelorette parties going on and looked like they also hosted weddings and private events.

Nice wines and beautiful grounds. I was recently back after not having visited for several years, and the tasting seems to have lost some of the fun. Not a lot of info from the pourer, and everything felt a little rushed.

So I came here to review this place and noticed that this winery may have the lowest Unilocal rating in Sonoma Valley. I can see why. What has happened to this place?! My wife and I have been here a few times before but it has now completely turned into something we don’t like. We visited twice this summer and were disappointed both times.
Our first visit we were completely invisible to this staff. Seems to be a common theme in reading the reviews here. While we stood there being ignored another guy was selling the wine club hard to a group of ladies. A woman, who shall remain nameless here, was walking around doing what looked like nothing. She saw us but looked like she didn’t care, even though she knew we were trying to get her to come help us. Oh well, we left. Extremely awkward first visit. Gave it a second chance recently with a group and it was just as forgettable :(
To sum up our visits, we felt like we were a burden on their staff and they made us feel very small and insignificant. Have always liked the wines, just some bad people. Shame on them.

Came in looking to have a good time and on a wine tour, but as a mid-​twenties couple, my girlfriend and I weren’t given the time of day. We expecting this in Napa, which is why we chose Sonoma. As we finished our tasting, we wanted to enjoy our time and have some more wine but weren’t even given the option. We were given our last tasting and handed a check with the last pour. Their loss.

Just wanted to share the message I got from CSJ 4mos after I posted my review. I’m appalled by the response and inaccurate claims made by Lisa P. «Indignant, entitled, rude, arrogant» aren’t necessarily words I would use to make customers feel better about their experience at CSJ. I truly regret spending my money at this winery and the 1.5 hour we wasted there.
«Lisa P: Wow, just read your review about this winery. Now, let’s see if you can accept an opposite opinion. FYI, wineries are Private Property! You and your entitled, rude and arrogant friends treated the winery grounds as if it were your own personal playground in a public park that you could say or do anything you like. Quite the contrary. Then you and your entitled entourage became indignant and openly disrespected a winery employee when she had to come out and explain to your group the wineries policy. I am quite sure this is a really unpleasant part of her job. In addition, your entitled group was overheard, by other patrons, yelling profanities as you were packing up to leave and then one of your so called „mature“ friends was seen urinating on one of trees before exiting the grounds. Well, it appears you and your group are not very mature and certainly have no class.»

We have been to this winery several times in the last few years (we are Club members) and this last visit was a real disappointment. First of all, we love Cinq Cepages which is why we visited the winery years ago and joined the Club. But as Club members, we were expecting a bit more of an experience. There used to be a beautiful patio available for Club & Reserve Tastings but now that is closed for the food pairing. There is a different patio available but it doesn’t have the beautiful view. Also, it was not well kept (dusty patio furniture and an empty water dispenser). We were there on a week day and no one else was in the Reserve Room… except two employees that were more interested in talking with each other than us. The experience has us thinking about dropping the Club (especially since we found so many other amazing wineries on this last trip).
If you are out for a day of wine tasting, then it is worth the stop because the winery & gardens are really beautiful. But I think their service needs some improvements.

This modern recreation of a french «wine château» has multiple tasting rooms. For the peasants among us, there is the standard tasting, which is $ 15 for a few sips of 5 or 6 different wines that sell for about $ 20 to $ 80 a bottle (!!!). There is also a «reserve» area for those who need not associate with us riff-​raff types (prices not revealed).

Went for a food pairing. Enjoyed the chardonnay most. Pretty grounds, but I heard it was $ 10k for a wedding there. For the venue alone.
To which my future niece could appropriately reply: For reals???

We were visiting the wine region of California during a trip to celebrate our 25^th anniversary. Our nephew, who lives in Oakland, would our tour guide. He said we had to visit Château St. Jean since it was one the «classic» vineyards. Driving up to the vineyard, we were not disappointed. Château St. Jean is beautiful and their tasting room is just what you’d picture it to be. If you buy $ 50 worth of wine the tasting is free. What was nice is that my wife and I were able to «share» a tasting. She’s now real big on wine but still wanted to taste Château St. Jean’s selection of wine.
We were not rushed as we were led through 5 different wines that Château St. Jean produces. Some we really liked, some were OK, and some we didn’t like at all. We ended up buying 3 bottles of wine that we really liked. Our visit to Château St. Jean was so enjoyable and relaxing. Our day in Sonoma wouldn’t have been complete without a stop at the vineyard.

Such a beautiful location and a great place for a picnic if you’re planning that on your wine tour! Our server was super nice and helpful. This is a great place to buy a bottle to just enjoy outside before you head back as well.

After having a wonderful experience at Kunde Winery (review soon to come) down the street our group of friends and family happened upon this place.
BIG MISTAKE here’s why:
The initial tasting experience was normal and the winery grounds especially the gardens and French style architecture were great. Things got weird when one of their employees noticed a bottle of champagne from another winery at our table. They questioned us as to why it was there, we explained to them that we were celebrating someone’s birthday. Soooo, the Château St Jean heartless-​robots had us put a cork in the bottle, to which we agreed. Ten minutes later another employee-​robot came out and actually asked us to put the corked bottle away and out of sight?!
WOW this gets better…
I then witnessed one of their staff members/​prison guards violently rip a glass of wine straight from my brother’s hand!!! The explanation was that no glass was to go beyond the tasting room, but man ohh man this women was a piece of work. Why couldn’t she simply just ASK him to go back into the tasting area with his glass?! BTW my brother was stone sober and did not pose any sort of threat to their lovely establishment.
This was the last straw, we packed up my sister’s birthday cake, our illegal champagne and willingly left before we got assaulted by another Château St. Jean stormtrooper (and I’m not talking about the Star Wars kind).
I honestly could see the staff giving a hard time to people that were causing trouble or not buying anything, but we all PAID for the $ 15 tasting, purchased three bottles of wine, and did not make any sort of disturbance besides being repeatedly publicly shamed by Château St Jean enforcers.
OVERALL: Very simple for me; the worst wine tasting experience ever (I’m not really a wine-​badass but I have been to at least 50 different wineries and am a proud member of the Gatekeepers Wine Guild at Concannon Vineyards). I can’t honestly rate their wine either as my family and I were too busy getting harassed by Château St. Jean henchmen.