Having travelled with Platypus in previous years, we were keen to do so again. We were not disappointed. The two tours to (1) Napa Valley Wineries, and (2) Sonoma Wineries introduced us to special vineyards and wines from small and medium producers and wine tastes not obtainable in the shops. Great tastes and great experiences - the final one in Sonoma being quirky and grand. We know that some have been hit by the devastating fires raging there as I type. I hope they come through and recover to safeguard those wonderful places and people.

We just returned from our first trip to California together. The Platypus tour was a huge highlight of our trip. We used Platypus to book a balloon ride over Napa in the early morning, and then were picked up after the balloon ride by our Platypus tour guide (Louis) to begin our tour of the wineries. Louis kept us completely entertained while driving us from winery to winery. He was informative, and taught us an amazing party trick for aerating our wine!! We also got a little quiz at the end to tour to make sure we retained some of his information! The first stop was Provenance winery. We enjoyed our tasting sitting outside on an absolutely perfect day. Our guide also happened to be a wine sommelier, and gave a very interesting tour, and the wine was wonderful. Our next stop was the Ballentine winery. Once again, the tour was very informative. We were taken out to where they were processing the newly harvested grapes. We were given a few of the grapes to taste, and OMG, they were perfect....which explains why the wine was so delicious!! The next stop was to the David Fulton winery. This was was extremely interesting!! Our host was Jason Elkin. I suggest you do a search for his bio. He was absolutely hilarious while being extremely informative about the the history of the winery as well as telling the story of a hip newcomer who came up with the hashtag trending wines, as well as starting several other amazing trends in Napa Valley. Our last stop was the Razi winery. What an interesting place!! This winery was started by Fred Razi. Fred was an architect who purchased the winery in the late 1980's. He built and replanted the winery from scratch. All of his wines were smooth, and absolutely delicious!! He was an unassuming man, and as I write this, I have been told that as of 3:00 this afternoon he was safe, but his winery was surrounded by the fires that are currently ravaging the area. My heart is currently breaking for all of those in California that are going through this devastation! I encourage anyone traveling to the area in the future to book a tour through Platypus. We will certainly book them again on our next trip out there!!!

As we were only staying in Napa for the 2 nights we felt the best way to fully enjoy the vineyard and winery experience was with an organised tour.
Platypus offered an excellent, streamlined service. They had organises visits to four smaller, boutique wineries. Our tour guide Andy was very knowledgeable and made the experience more enjoyable.