Wayfarer Vineyard

Tasting at Wayfarer Vineyard isn’t exactly the experience you expect. With an address in Healdsburg, you might immediately think a tasting room surrounded by bucolic rolling hills and vineyards. But Wayfarer’s grapes are actually grown in the Fort Ross/Seaview appellation (a fair distance away). This is the production facility; a corrugated metal clad warehouse just down the the street from NAPA auto parts.

We found Wayfarer through family - that is, the Pahlmeyer family. Two of Jason’s daughters work at Hirsch and Occidental and the third is the winemaker here.

For $75pp we trusted eight wines and were treated to a mini charcuterie board. We started in the barrel room with a fragrant and complex glass of their rosé. After a brief tour of the facility, our group was guided into the lab where we sat at tall tables and tried seven more wines: 3 Pinot Noir, 3 Chardonnay, and 1 Syrah (a new experiment for them). While all of the wines were extremely well-made, we felt only the Rosé and the WF2 Pinot were correctly priced, while the others were overpriced.

Our guide was knowledgeable and gave us time to chat in private. (What is up with people pouring from mini carafes these days?) The materials were also high class but missing one thing: a map! If I’m not sitting in the middle of the field where the grapes are grown, you need a map.