4 Great American Wine Regions to Visit Beyond California

Enjoy festivals, local foods and idyllic scenery

a vineyard with fall colors in the background

Wine tasting trips provide views of the scenic countryside and a chance to consider wine regions that aren’t Napa or Sonoma, California.

Alamy

Bill Fink,

AARP

En español

Published September 06, 2024

Going on a wine tasting trip is a pleasure not just for the wines, but also for the full wine country experience: trying local foods, staying at quaint inns and enjoying the scenic countryside of rolling hills arrayed with vineyards.

Customers 50-plus remain the biggest segment of wine drinkers, so there should be plenty of peers at wine tastings. A recent study from the U.S. Wine Industry Partnership reported that boomers along with older consumers make up 40 percent of today’s wine market, rising to 65 percent when the mostly 50-plus Gen X segment is included. Arizona’s wine tourism bureau confirms this trend with visitors 55-plus accounting for 40 percent of the state’s winery visits and 64 percent of wine festival attendees.

Keep in mind that heavy drinking has been shown to raise the risk for high blood pressure. Older adults, both drinkers and nondrinkers, are already at risk for hypertension. Drinking responsibly is the key to enjoying any experience.

California’s Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley are the most famous American wine travel destinations, but for those looking for new experiences, the U.S. provides a breadth and depth of wine regions with great tasting opportunities unknown even to some connoisseurs.

From the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York to the high deserts of Arizona, the verdant valleys of Oregon and the traditional farm country of Wisconsin, here are tips on where to go and what to taste at some great alternative wine regions.

More than 20 wines from Verde Valley, Arizona, will be featured at the Sedona Wine Festival.

Courtesy Sedona Wine Festival

Arizona: Verde Valley

Arizona doesn’t seem like a great place to grow wine, but the Verde Valley, comprising more than 200 square miles in the state’s north-central region, is home to the Verde Valley Wine Trail. The trail has more than two dozen wineries in the area, with wines made from more than 40 types of locally grown grapes. The Verde Valley is about 100 miles from Phoenix and 20 miles from Sedona.

The town of Cottonwood is considered the center of Verde Valley wine country, with nine tasting rooms located around Main Street in Old Town. Cottonwood and Sedona can both be used as a base for guided van tours of the valley with stops at multiple properties.

Page Springs Cellars in Cornville showcases a unique setting of vineyard rows arrayed between rough desert hills. Its tasting room also features a bistro menu, live music and an art gallery. Visitors can book harvest tours in September to get a behind-the-scenes look at the whole wine-making process. For a full immersion, a party of four can rent a cabana on the property.

The region even has its own wine school: The Southwest Wine Center at Yavapai College has amazing views over nearby vineyards, plenty of parking and easy accessibility for visitors to experience student-curated wine tastings. And this isn’t some wild and crazy party school. The average student age here is 48, as many retirees move to the area and enroll to learn the art of winemaking and grape growing, says Paula Woolsey, committee member for the Verde Valley AVA (American Viticultural Area).

The upcoming 15th annual Sedona Wine Festival (Sept. 27–29) provides a one-stop sampling of Arizona wines. More than 20 wines from Verde Valley and around the state will be featured in tastings and food pairings.

The Finger Lakes wine region in New York is divided into three main wine trails.

Courtesy Finger Lakes Wine Country

New York: Finger Lakes

The Finger Lakes wine region in upstate New York is home to 150 wineries set amid dazzling lakes, forested hills and small towns recalling traditional Americana. The region is divided into three main wine trails: the Cayuga Lake, Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake trails. These trails group related wineries and offer tasting passports for discounts and event access.

While the region is well known for its sweet Riesling dessert wines, visitors can also enjoy red varietals. For a taste of Riesling, visit one of the originals, the Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery, and the newer, award-winning Weis Vineyards overlooking Keuka Lake. Glenora Wine and Lakewood Vineyards are recommended stops along the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, while Lucas Vineyards is the founding winery of the Cayuga Lake Wine Trail.

Visitors can stay at charming B&Bs such as the historic Belva Lockwood Inn in Owego or the restored Victorian manor of the 1897 Beekman House Bed & Breakfast between Seneca and Keuka lakes. The Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel on the Seneca Lake waterfront provides a full-service traditional hotel experience.

Fall events include farmers markets throughout October, live music shows and special wine-tasting dinners. Some notable events include the Guthrie Wineglass Marathon, and the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen, as well as the annual spring GlassFest in Corning.

a hilltop property with a wine tasting room

Setting Inn in Newburg, Oregon, is a hilltop property with an in-house wine tasting room.

Courtesy Setting Inn & Foundry 503

Oregon: Willamette Valley

The rolling hills of Oregon’s scenic Willamette Valley is blanketed with hundreds of wineries, many within an hour’s drive of the Portland area. The region is famous for its pinot noir wines, but visitors should try new white wine and sparkling wine offerings.

Sip and stay at the Setting Inn in Newberg, an eight-room hilltop property with great views, comfy rooms and an array of mostly local breakfast goodies and juice breakfast boxes included with a stay. Its stylish in-house tasting room with high-end pinot noir and chardonnay wines and carefully curated charcuterie plates is worth a visit for nonguests as well. The location is reminiscent of Napa Valley, the site of Setting Inn’s original property and winery.

Benza Vineyards in Hillsboro features its multiple highly rated pinot noirs and pinot gris wines to sample with snacks in the rustic tasting room and outdoor gardens patrolled by winery dogs and guarded by a colorful flock of chickens.

The Dundee Hotel is not only a convenient central location from which to tour Willamette wineries, but also has four tasting rooms located on the ground floor — so no need to find a designated driver. Nearby, the recently opened Lytle-Barnett Aubaine tasting room in town shares the breadth of Willamette Valley variety with chardonnays and sparkling wines in addition to more traditional pinot noirs.

Enjoy a luxe experience at the Black Walnut Inn & Vineyard with its Mediterranean villa style rooms or its newly opened neighbor, the Grange Estate, for a quirky boutique feel. Vineyard views pair with on-site tastings from The Four Graces winery accompanied with exquisite tasting menus of locally sourced ingredients.

a stage where live music is played at a winery

In addition to the wine, Bailey’s Run Vineyard & Winery in New Glarus, Wisconsin, hosts fish fries and live music.

Bill Fink

Wisconsin: The Driftless Region

Wisconsin is rightly famous for its cheese, and nothing goes better with cheese than wine. This is a great reason to explore some of Wisconsin’s more than 240 wineries, some with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. Amid cornfields and herds of dairy cows, the Driftless wine region of west-central and southern Wisconsin is a scenic and surprising wine destination easily drivable from Chicago and Milwaukee.

The Wollersheim Winery in Prairie du Sac, near the vacation destination of Wisconsin Dells, was founded in 1846, then revived in the 1970s by the Wollersheim family who have since proved that Wisconsin wines have a lasting appeal with multiple national wine awards.

Wollersheim features a Napa-like visitor experience with a hilltop villa containing a tasting room, shop and bistro, with gardens for outdoor tastings. Try their signature Domaine du Sac red wine made from estate-grown Maréchal Foch grapes.

Bailey’s Run Vineyard & Winery, nestled in the rolling hills of New Glarus in southern Wisconsin, declares that this is the place “where wine goes to have fun.” The combined winery and distillery live up to its billing with popular Friday fish fries, live music events and even a local group of women in their 60s and 70s who come to hold regular mah-jongg sessions with their wine tastings. Try the light and dry Marquette wines.

Hawk’s Mill Winery, located close to the Illinois border, focuses on local Marquette grapes as well as sweet novelty-label wines, including The Geezer, a popular birthday gift for “seniors with a sense of humor,” says Teresa Joranlien, co-owner of the winery. Winery events including euchre card game tournaments and bingo nights draw the 50-plus crowd to its expanded tasting room and restaurant, Joranlien says. For a true small-town Midwestern event, Hawk’s Mill hosts a “Doe Camp Weekend” wine event at the start of deer hunting season for the wives of hunters.

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Bill Fink is an award-winning travel writer covering global adventures for BBC, Lonely Planet, Thrillist and many other outlets. Follow him @finktravels.