Wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains

My wife and I will be heading to Santa Cruz for three days of R&R starting this coming Friday. We're thinking we'll do a winery tour on Saturday. Bonny Doon will certainly be on the list as will David Bruce. Are there any others we shouldn't miss?

Thanks in advance!

Ridge, Mt. Eden, Windy Oaks would be on my short list.

D'oh! How could I leave Ridge out?

D'oh! How could I leave Ridge out?

While they're officially in the Santa Cruz Mtns, you won't find them easily accessible from Santa Cruz itself, Mike. The road up to Monte Bello Ridge starts in Cupertino, which means you have to travel back into the South Bay to get there. That's a solid hour of fairly strenuous mountain driving. Mount Eden is in Saratoga, which is a hop, skip and jump away (i.e., about 10 mi of driving that'll take over 30 min to negotiate) but Bonny Doon's retail arm is in Santa Cruz proper, so tying all 3 into a single day would be less than relaxing IMO. You may be more inured to long stretches of mountain roads after tasting wines than the average wine tourist, but I thought that you should be aware of the logistics while planning.

Mark Lipton

D'oh! How could I leave Ridge out?

While they're officially in the Santa Cruz Mtns, you won't find them easily accessible from Santa Cruz itself, Mike. The road up to Monte Bello Ridge starts in Cupertino, which means you have to travel back into the South Bay to get there. That's a solid hour of fairly strenuous mountain driving. Mount Eden is in Saratoga, which is a hop, skip and jump away (i.e., about 10 mi of driving that'll take over 30 min to negotiate) but Bonny Doon's retail arm is in Santa Cruz proper, so tying all 3 into a single day would be less than relaxing IMO. You may be more inured to long stretches of mountain roads after tasting wines than the average wine tourist, but I thought that you should be aware of the logistics while planning.

Mark Lipton

Thanks, Mark. I was looking at the map of the area and coming to a similar conclusion. If we get an early start from Sacto on Friday, we should be able to hit Bonny Doon once we get into Santa Cruz. That would allow us to aim for the Ridge side of the area on Saturday, if we decide we're up for that.

Here is an article worth perusing since you will soon be in Santa Cruz, Mike. Have a wonderful time in my old home turf. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1KA8UN.DTL. Jim

The road from Stevens Creek Dam up to Montebello Ridge (known for some reason as Montebello Road) is a good place to check out your sports car's low speed cornering grip and acceleration. On the way down, you could even check out the brakes a bit.
The view up there is magnificent, unless it's foggy.

John

The road from Stevens Creek Dam up to Montebello Ridge (known for some reason as Montebello Road) is a good place to check out your sports car's low speed cornering grip and acceleration. On the way down, you could even check out the brakes a bit.
The view up there is magnificent, unless it's foggy.

John

My wife will be thrilled!!