The best picnic wineries
Unlike Napa, Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley still lets you spread out a lunch on winery grounds. This is the most relaxed, most memorable way to spend a Healdsburg afternoon.
A picnic at a winery is the single best thing we send first-timers to do here. Buy provisions in the morning, pick one or two wineries with real picnic grounds, order a bottle, and stay a while. These are the spots that do it best. All are in Dry Creek Valley unless noted, and policies shift with the season, so confirm picnicking is allowed when you book.
Most wineries want you to buy their wine, not bring your own, but they are happy for you to bring food. Stock up at the Dry Creek General Store (1881, great sandwiches) on the way out, Oakville Grocery on the plaza, or the Jimtown Store if you are headed to Alexander Valley.
Preston Farm and Winery
Our top pickThe platonic Dry Creek picnic. A working biodynamic farm at the end of West Dry Creek Road with olive trees, a stone oven, and a farm store selling estate olive oil, hearth bread, and pickled vegetables in case you forgot to pack. Play bocce, sit under a tree, drink the Rhone-style wines. Reserve a table on weekends and plan to stay two hours, not twenty minutes.
Dry Creek Vineyard
Easy & centralFounded in 1972 and built for this, with picnic tables under big oaks, a bocce court you can reserve, and a no-reservation wine garden if you just want a glass without committing to a tasting. The Sauvignon Blanc and Fume Blanc are ideal picnic whites. The most beginner-friendly picnic in the valley.
Bella Vineyards
Beat the heatYou taste inside a cool hillside cave and then carry your glass out to a hilltop view of the valley. On a hot Dry Creek afternoon, the cave is a genuine relief and the panorama is the best of any picnic stop. Small and family-run, Zinfandel-focused.
Seghesio Family Vineyards
In townThe convenient one, sitting in town on Grove Street so you can picnic without driving the valley. Bring lunch to the arbored grove, buy a bottle or glasses, and play a round of bocce between the historic Italian-family Zins. First-come grove seating, so go earlier on busy weekends.
Quivira Vineyards
With kidsA sustainable, biodynamic estate with an organic garden, a chicken coop, and a resident pig that delight kids while the grown-ups taste Zinfandel and a crisp Sauvignon Blanc. Easygoing and green in every sense.