Beer, Wine & Spirits in West Sacramento

Revolution Wine's skilled staffers give each batch of their hand-crafted red, white, and port wines a full body and lush feel. And while heavy machinery and wooden barrels help do the hard work of converting these wine grapes into libations, it's the winemakers who pour a little bit of love into each batch. In the winery's kitchen, a dedicated team of chefs churns out a menu of seasonal bistro food made from local and fresh ingredients. Small artisan plates of French cheese, mixed nuts, and savory bruschetta offer a lighter dining path, while larger entrees of housemade pasta and pork belly sandwiches with cheddar jalapeno biscuits present heartier fare. Revolutions Wines also offers a wine club that gifts members with limited-edition wines and grants access to the first sniff when each new barrel is opened.

Long visited by dreamy visions of starting their own tour company, Jewels Wine Tours owners and Napa Valley residents Julia Young and Ryan Raes utilize their regional intimacy to construct guided tours to the finest wineries, distilleries, and restaurants the area has to offer. The team takes great joy in customizing packages to their guests’ preferences, whether customers are looking to taste-test a certain hard-to-find vintage, or just want to be driven around by someone other than the family dog. A dedicated driver handles navigation for the duration of each tour, allowing the grape gurus to focus on enriching the tour experience by answering in-depth questions and providing insights into Napa and Sonoma Valley history.

The Sierra Nevada foothills have been tilled since the time of the gold rush, but its thin soil allows only the heartiest grapevines to thrive. But when they grow, the grapes there produce powerful wines full of intense flavors. The staff at Auriga Wine Cellars specialize in reds, which range from the peppery, black cherry notes of their Barbera to a double-gold-award-winning shiraz-and-syrah blend aged for one year in French and American oak. They complement these robust offerings with their small-batch sparkling wine and their sangiovese, which tastes of slightly spicy raspberries and strawberries with a hint of basil, thyme, and sage. They sell their vintages by the bottle, but the shop’s wine club delivers bottles to aficionados three times a year, letting them try out new vintages or spend more frustrating evenings trying to squeeze a model ship inside them.

Perry Creek Winery's consistent 90+ point ratings in Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast are due in no small part to the efforts of vintners Garrett Buckland, Stefan Tscheppe, and Scott Johnson. Drawing on cultivating experience in Napa, Austria, and the Sierra Foothills, the winemakers have carefully engineered 40 acres of ideal soil that brims with hand-pruned grape vines. The trio’s many varietals embody their distinct heritage, with different wine lineages such as the Altitude 2401 Reserve Series, the strong wines of the Cobra selection, and the estate wines that harness the diversity of the land’s grapes. An online store features the winery's choicest merchandise, from current varietals to futures and wearable hats and shirts made entirely of old corks.

In the years following World War II, Dutch immigrant John Van Ruiten sought to fulfill his dream of owning a vineyard. With a simple handshake as his contract, he purchased the land that would help him turn that reverie into a verdant realty. More than a half-century later, the wine empire spawned by that handshake continues to sprawl as quickly as the vines of its zinfandel grapes. These grapes and more now stretch across the 800 acres that Van Ruiten Family Vineyards call home, earning the winery high accolades—including a nod in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming their 2007 old vine zinfandel among the top 12 wines in the world in 2009.

In Van Ruiten's tasting room, guests can sample the winery's signature zinfandel, chardonnay, and cabernet sauvignon–shiraz blend before retiring to shady corners of the courtyard or an outdoor patio overlooking the vineyards. Among the vines, nesting boxes house owls that—as an alternative to pesticides—hunt down rodents and use their bright eyes to scare away enterprising grape thieves.

The family of vintners at Sorelle Winery, established on the historic Dodge Estate, curate its original 1866 home, tend to their vineyard, and ferment a collection of choice vintages. Though in its nascence, the winery has already taken home a gold medal from the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition for its 2009 sangiovese. Inside, the wood-walled tasting room invites couples to sip from crimson and amber glasses, comparing flavors, aromas, and who can spit-take the farthest. Lush lawns and low trees surround the outdoor patio, which grants views of the historic Dodge House property, a land once roamed by Native Americans, Spanish conquistadors, and horses with a nose for a good sangiovese.