The Sunset Travel Awards celebrate the best in travel in the West. These wineries, tasting rooms, and more are the 2025 winners of the What to Do: Top Tastings category. Check out the complete list of winners here. For our definitive and searchable travel directory to help you plan your next trip in the West, click here.
Echolands Estate
Bea Murray
The striking new estate and winery produces wine from top Walla Walla fruit, boasts a tasting room cantilevered over Mill Creek, and offers spectacular views of the Blue Mountains. The abundant rain allows for dry farming, making this a sustainable and stylish must-visit addition to the region.
Bella Union Winery
Yoshi Makino
Far Niente’s newest winery and tasting room is all earth and jewel tones, a super chic addition to Napa Valley that feels as much like an indoor-outdoor wine country social club as it does a tasting center. With an artist in residence program and culinary offerings, it’s a dynamic spin on the vinous good life.
Séka Hills Tasting Room
Courtesy of Séka Hills
We’re big fans of Séka Hills olive oil, and its new Capay Valley tasting room northwest of Sacramento celebrates the oil and other agricultural products produced by this company, owned and operated by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. Here, you can try olive oils, wines, honey, beef jerky, and seasoned nuts, as well as hot and cold small plates featuring Yocha Dehe ranch-raised beef and farm-fresh produce.
Cliff Lede Vineyards
Courtesy of Cliff Lede Vineyards
Located in Napa Valley’s prized Stags Leap District just outside of Yountville, Cliff Lede Vineyards makes stellar wines from some of the best grapes in the appellation. With a winery designed by legend Howard Backen, the property offers tastings of its excellent wines in a beautiful setting filled with art and rock ’n’ roll memorabilia.
Soter Vineyards
Michele McSwain
Soter puts conservation front and center at its biodynamic Mineral Springs Ranch, where its nuanced Pinot Noirs and other varietals are served alongside an optional Provisions Tasting menu of foraged and locally sourced, seasonal ingredients: Think morels, favas, duck confit, and Oregon birch syrup. This Willamette Valley experience is a relaxed and celebratory combination of sustainability and luxury.
Hood River Mocktrail
Courtesy of Visit Hood River
The zero-alcohol artisanal beverage movement is thriving in Hood River in the heart of Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. Drinkers who want maximum craft and flavor with zero ABV will find a “mocktrail” of makers, including Wilderton, the first non-alcoholic distillery, multiple kombucha companies, Good Medicine Tea, and Double Mountain Brewery offering housemade ginger ale and root beer.
Alma Rosa Winery
Zach Brown of Atlas Imagery
As the first certified organic winery in Santa Barbara, this pioneering estate makes exceptional coastal cool-climate wines that are the embodiment of the Santa Rita Hills appellation.
Far Niente Winery
Courtesy of Far Niente Winery
Known for its impeccable Cabs and Chards, this family-owned Napa winery established in 1885 has stood the test of time.
Frank Family Vineyards
Courtesy of Frank Family Vineyards
Though its patriarch sadly passed recently, this cult producer will always be synonymous with Calistoga Cabernet.
Discover Vail Culinary Trails for All Seasons
Courtesy of Discover Vail
Vail may be known for its Alpine sport delights, but it’s also a mountain-high culinary destination in its own right. Bavarian cuisine’s schnitzels and fondues abound, but so do farm-to-table restaurants making the most of Colorado’s artisanal foodways, plus Michelin-recognized spots that take culinary expertise and elevate dining at elevation.