We stopped in recently with a friend, who is a member of a partner winery, that provided the…read moreopportunity for four of us to taste for free (worth $95/person, according to their website). Since wine preferences vary from person to person, this review will be about the tasting experience only.
The tasting started with their sparkling brut rosé, which was pretty tasty, however, it seemed to lose its bubbles after a short few minute walk to their fermentation and aging facility, which indicates to me it had been opened for quite some time. The "tour" itself lasted less than 5 minutes and didn't really come with too much of an explanation--it was more or less just allowing us access to the winemaking facility and showing the barrel room.
The tasting was seated in their covered, outdoor patio--a beautiful space--a included 3 wines in addition to the brut rosé: 2025 Estate Sauvignon Blanc, 2022 Cabernet Franc Blend, and the 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon 'RLC'.
One thing I really dislike about Napa Valley tastings is when they pour you wines you cannot buy because they're available to club members only. It's quite pervasive in the valley and unfortunately, Crocker & Starr was no different. The 2025 Estate Sauvignon Blanc was only available for purchase to club members.
In addition, if you like to know the technical details for each wine, they do not have any tech sheets/production notes available on their website or at the tasting. They provide empty bottles of the wines in the tasting, however they didn't match the vintage so it wasn't even possible to know basic information like the ABV of the wines. It immediately sets off alarm bells in my mind when a winery is opaque with the winemaking/product details. Some of us want to know the final ABV, RS, TA, etc, and to not have this information available anywhere is quite bizarre, especially with many producers moving toward more transparency rather than less.
Our host was friendly but not necessarily super knowledgeable about the production of the wines. For example, when we asked about RS in the Sauvignon Blanc, she started talking about brix at harvest, which unfortunately has nothing to do with RS in the wine, which she later claimed was 0g/L--a value that seemed contradictory to the palate experience of the wine and impossible to verify without tech sheets.
Overall, it was a standard tasting experience and from where I was sitting, not at all worth $95/person. Yes, I get it--Napa is expensive and they're selling "experiences" rather than tastings. However, based on our experience, this was merely a tasting and you can get a lot better ones for cheaper in the valley.