Looking for "off the beaten path" wineries to visit in outlying SFO area.

I am booked to visit Skippy in Frisco from 10/2 until 10/10. Part of the time we're going to watch the Blue Angels fly under the Golden Gate Bridge (Hopefully on a friend's boat!), and had hoped to see the Red Bull Air Races, but they moved that event to San Diego and out by one week.

Skippy'll have one or two days off, but I will have two or three days to wander from Livermore as a starting point, needing to be back by 5:00 to pick her up at her office. In range as far as I can see are: San Jose, Amador County, and of course Livermore Valley. So I would like to set a quest for myself to visit a few wineries that are off the beaten path in hopes of making a discovery or two. Really cool would be to find a next "Ridge Essence" out there. Any suggestions or ideas?

-Clay

Sleep late if you intend to wander around Livermore. Most of the wineries don't open up until 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. in that neck of the woods.

You could also visit Viano Winery in Martinez. That is definitely off the path, beaten or otherwise.

You might want to poke around in the Brentwood-Oakley area and check out the new tasting rooms going in there.

Oh, yeah, there's Napa and Sonoma, too, but what the heck ...

Thanks Gary, yeah, I learned that the hard way last time I was there. Spent a couple hours in town waiting for 11:00.

You know about Ridge Vineyards already, I guess. (On a ridge over silicon valley.) Monte Bello Cabernet, etc. The 50 or so producers in its Santa Cruz Mountains AVA (which is much more three-dimensional than the North Bay wine regions, requiring a bit of driving to make multiple visits) was the third of the original northern-California subregions identified after Prohibition as the most suited for fine wine grapes.*

Assuming you know already about Napa and Sonoma Counties, to the west is the northernmost wine-growing coastal river valley, the Anderson Valley, with a modest winery count but an unusually high average quality.

(Also you probably know this, but only out-of-towners say "Frisco." It's a giveaway idiom, like "Cali" or "Sixth Avenue. " Or talking about "Chez Panisse" when you actually mean Chez Panisse Café.)

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*“California’s best table wines, whether white or red, may be expected to come from the Santa Cruz Mountains, from the Napa Valley, and from Sonoma County.” -- Schoonmaker and Marvel, American Wines, Duell, Sloan and Pearce (New York), 1941. From the original.

October is probably going to be a VERY busy time for most folks, particularly the smaller outfits that don't have the excess income to fund a separate tasting room.

If it were any other time of the year, then the two that I'd recommend would be:

Andrew Vingiello
[downtown San Fran]
http://apvin.com/apvin/contact-us.htm

Fisher
[way up on Spring Mountain]
http://www.fishervineyards.com/winery/visiting.php

If you consider Amador County within your range, you also have Paso Robles, Napa, Sonoma and the Santa Cruz Mountains to contend with. Staying closer to home, you might try Cedar Mountain in Livermore.

Mark Lipton