5 Cool Wine Regions to Visit

For folks that enjoy their nightly glass of wine, few things are quite as fun as visiting the vineyards and the regions which produce the wine that they enjoy.  Unfortunately, a trip to Napa Valley or Bordeaux can often be prohibitively expensive, so here’s 5 cool wine regions to visit that won’t break the bank.

Sonoma:

Instead of visiting it’s better known neighbor, venture to Sonoma instead of Napa. Sure, Sonoma isn’t as quaint and requires some extra planning, but the wine quality is just as high and instead of spending well over $100 per bottle and up to $40 per person for a tasting flight, the prices are at most half that. An added bonus, some of the most popular new wine clubs in America like First leaf are based here.

Paso Robles:

Another in California, Paso Robles has been called America’s next Napa by Food and Wine magazine. With that amount of hype, you might be wondering how prices haven’t taken off yet.  The reason behind that is fairly simple: location. Unlike most other well known wine regions, Paso Robles is a significant distance from a major city.  Sonoma sits only an hour outside of San Francisco. Meanwhile Paso Robles is about half way between Los Angeles and San Jose.  It takes two and a half hours in the car to reach Paso Robles from the major cities in the state.

Wilcox Arizona:

Don’t laugh yes, in Arizona. Wilcox Arizona in some ways is the center of the wine trade in one of America’s fastest growing states.  Located about a half hour outside of Tuscon, Wilcox has a major advantage in growing grapes in what amounts to one of the world’s warmest climates. Wilcox sits at significant elevation.  As you move into the mountains the temperature cools down significantly at night. Those cooler night time temperatures allow the grapes to recover a significant amount of the acidity they lose during the warm summer days. With sunshine obviously not an issue, planting grapes at significant elevation means Arizona winemakers have an interesting tale to tell and good wine to share.

Finger Lakes: New York:

I couldn’t write about cool wine regions to visit, without including the area where I’ve spent so much time.  The Finger Lakes is in western New York outside of Buffalo.  Much like Wilcox Arizona, a quirk of geography means that the Finger Lakes grows better wine than you might expect.  Despite sub freezing temperatures much of the year, the temperatures in vineyards themselves often are manageable. Why? To start, water temperature barely changes with surface temperature.  So you can flood a vineyard to help keep it warm.  Second, the large amount of water keeps the air temperature higher than it would be otherwise.

Walla Walla Washington:

Washington is America’s fastest growing wine region.  Walla Walla is Washington’s fastest growing wine region.  Hours from Seattle, Walla Walla offers a small town experience with outstanding restaurants and wineries. There’s really not much else to say other than the wine in Walla Walla is perhaps the best value being produced anywhere in the world and therefore is well worth a visit on it’s own, or as an add on during your next trip to Seattle.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into 5 cool wine regions to visit.