Gundlach Bundschu Winery

Six generations of one family have farmed Rhinefarm since 1858, and the vineyard now carries Regenerative Organic Certification. The cave tour is $80 and ends on the Vintage Reserve Cabernet.1 2

Why go

The estate sits at the crossroads of three appellations, Sonoma Valley, Carneros and Napa Valley, on 150 acres the Bundschus have never sold.1 Charles Bundschu started the Bacchus Club over a hundred years ago to get family and friends onto the ranch for poetry and song, and the wine club still carries the name.1 The cave is cut into the hillside and the tour walks out its back doors into the organic blocks.1 There is also a Pinzgauer, which is a Swiss Army transport truck, and they will drive you across the vineyard in it with a glass in your hand.1

Order this / avoid

Order: the Bundschu Heritage Tasting. Five limited bottlings off old vines the family selects by hand.1
Order: the Cave & Vineyard Tour at $80, if you want the ground rather than the bar. It finishes on the Vintage Reserve Cabernet, a bottling the family has made since 1981.2 1
Order: the Rhinefarm Bar Tasting if you are short on time. Three wines, standing up, the way this room poured when it opened its tasting bar about fifty years ago.1
Avoid: packing lunch. No outside food is allowed, and the winery sells snacks, cheese and charcuterie instead.1

Good to know

Open daily 11:00am to 5:30pm, last tasting seating at 4pm. Reservations are encouraged at weekends, and a weekday walk-in is the best chance of a seat.1
A 20% service charge rides on the booked experiences, which the Tock listing prints and the winery's own page does not.2
The Pinzgauer runs Friday to Sunday, $105 on Friday and Saturday and $85 on Sunday, and the truck is limited to guests 13 and older.2 1
Rhinefarm Afterhours runs the third Friday of the month, 5pm to 8pm, $20.2

Verdict

could-visit — One family has farmed Rhinefarm since 1858, and the vineyard is Regenerative Organic Certified, which adds soil, cover-crop and worker-fairness requirements on top of organic. The Cave & Vineyard Tour is $80 and walks you into a hillside cave and out the back doors into the vines. The Pinzgauer tour is a Swiss Army truck and costs $105 on a Saturday, plus a 20% service charge that the booking page prints and the winery's own page does not. Held here because everything above comes from the family's own account and nobody I read has published on the wine.

Gundlach Bundschu Winery.