In this new Third Edition of The California Directory of Fine Wineries, there is both plenty to enjoy, and to nitpick about. It is a very well produced hardcover guide to wineries in the Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties, with helpful maps, information on the wineries profiled, and some excellent photography from Robert Holmes. For oenophiles interested in touring Napa and Sonoma, this could be the only guide you need. Olmstead has picked an interesting selection of both major wineries (Beaulieu Vineyard--1.5 million cases annually) and minors (Cardinale Estate--700-900 cases annually), but with any limited selection like this (only 61 wineries profiled) the question is just what the selection criteria consisted of for inclusion.
There are 35 Napa wineries, 21 Sonoma, and five from Mendocino profiled. It probably would have been better to skip the shout-out to Mendocino and just include a couple more from Sonoma, and, if you were doing this as a series, include Mendocino in a directory with wineries from Lake, Humbolt and Trinity counties. But that is the nitpicking part of the review. This is an excellent volume when you consider it as a personal "Top Ten" style list. None of the wineries selected will probably disappoint, and the maps included for each county have many more wineries on them (not like it isn't hard to just drive up highway 29 looking for signs). This is an excellently packaged book, the photography is excellent, and the information on location, tastings and tours (hours and costs) and special notes about each winery will make a visit to Napa or Sonoma easy and fun to plan. While not a must have, it is an excellent book for the price.Get more detail about California Directory of Fine Wineries.
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