The Traveling Wino reminds you to always have a designated driver when visiting wineries. And let’s face it…it’s tons more fun when you do! Here’s a couple of ideas to make it fun for your group and your driver when visiting wineries:
- Make your winery outings a regular monthly event. Draw numbers to see who drives first and rotate each month.
- Intice a friend to drive with a good old fashioned bribe: if you drive this time, then next time all tasting fees will be paid with a combined pitch-in from the group.
- Bribery idea #2: offer to buy the driver a bottle of wine of his or her choice so they can enjoy it later that night at home.
- Several wine regions offer “for hire” designated drivers that will drive you around in your car and take you safely back to your hotel or home base. These service often act as personalized guides because they know the region better than anyone!
- Ride a wine trolley, wine train or wine limo. Although this can be a little pricy for a wino, you can often find coupons and deals for these tours. Whether it is full price or through a discount, they are a whole lot of fun and offer a safe and responsible way to enjoy the wineries.
- Stay at a location that offers multiple tasting rooms within walking distance. Towns like Healdsburg, Sonoma, Geyserville and Murphy’s have multiple wine tasting venues located around downtown “squares”. By booking a hotel or room nearby, you can safely hop from tasting room to tasting room and never set foot in a car
We’d love to hear your creative ideas on how to include a designated driver in wine tasting outings. If you’d like to share, send us your ideas on the “Contact Us” page and we’ll update this page regularly with new ways to make wine tasting fun and safe for everyone.
