Natural Wine Tasting Guide: Bay Area

So, you’re planning a trip to Napa or Sonoma and want the bucolic wine country experience. But now, you’re fully aware of the difference between conventional and natural wine, so you can’t just head up Highway 29 and wing it like in the old days, before you KNEW. A quandary, for sure, as most of Napa isn’t farmed organically. And generally winemaking there is very formulaic, the following of a recipe to achieve a consistent product that gets the scores and justifies the price tag. In other words, the opposite of natural. Because, let’s be honest, most visitors are coming for the Disneyland wine country experience — the perfectly groomed vineyards, the cult Cabernets, the fancy shit.