The Chateau Montelena Tasting Room

With all of the demand to visit – Chateau Montelena is regularly included on lists of  ‘Napa Valley’s Most Beautiful Wineries’ – we wondered if the tasting room experience matched the quality of the wine and, frankly, all of the hype. 

Here’s what we discovered.

First things first, if you visit Chateau Montelena for a tasting, you have three experiences to choose from:

The Montelena Estate Collection is a semi-private experience that includes library Chardonnay and a comparative tasting of four Estate Cabernet Sauvignon vintages. $120 per person. Approximately 90 minutes.

The Library Tasting is also a semi-private tasting that features a mix of library wines and bottles exclusive to the winery experience. $80 per person. Approximately 75 minutes.

A Taste of Montelena is more of an introduction to Chateau Montelena’s wines and includes the winery’s current releases. A Taste of Montelena is hosted at a stand-up bar in the Chateau. $55 per person. Approximately 45 minutes.

All tastings are reservation only, but if you are unable to make a reservation or you just want to stop by the winery on a whim, they do try and accommodate a few walk-in tastings. 

Now that you have the winery’s tasting descriptions, we would like to share our experience. 

When we booked our tasting reservation, the only option available was ‘A Taste of Montelena’, which showcases the brand’s current releases, and that’s fine. We like Chateau Montelena’s wine and were happy to explore the new release. Granted, if the higher-end experiences were available, we likely would have opted for one of those.

Now, on the winery’s website, the company states that the ‘Taste of Montelena’ experience is held in the Chateau. Okay, so far, so good. But, what they don’t tell you, is that it may be held in the Chateau gift shop. Which, technically, is in the chateau, but… really?

How the wine-tasting experience unfolded

We will just come out and say it: the gift shop is noisy. Everyone wants a piece of Chateau Montelena swag to take home, and the place is buzzing. Good for Chateau Montelena; bad for anyone who has to endure a tasting here.

The standing-only experience, combined with the constant flow of incoming customers, made the experience distracting. If we’re being honest, and we do not like to sugarcoat our reviews, it was a strange place for a tasting and not at all what we expected from one of the Judgement of Paris winners. The experience did not do justice to the breathtaking property, the history of the winery, or the quality of Chateau Montelena’s fine Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays.

The best way we can describe our Chateau Montelena experience is disorganized and chaotic. As we said, the grounds are amazing, and there are many places better suited to this tasting than the small gift shop. Granted, this was the “basic” tasting, but if the only site available to host this is in the gift shop, then they should not even offer this experience. 

Trying Chateau Montelena’s wine in this atmosphere does not showcase what are normally some of our favorite wines.

One bright spot of the visit was our host, Lin, who did a great job of conveying the winery’s incredible history (while talking loud over the gift shop patrons or just pausing until they left) and some background on what was happening with the wines today. 

Chateau Montelena Wine Club

If you like the wines of Chateau Montelena, and we do, if your only tasting option is the ‘Taste of Montelena,’ then you may be better off exploring one of several wine club memberships that the winery offers and avoiding the gift shop wine tasting experience.

Friends of Montelena

Receive two to four bottles of Potter Valley Riesling, Estate Zinfandel, Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc in the spring and two to four bottles of Chateau Montelena Napa Valley Chardonnay and Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in the fall.

The benefits of this entry-level membership are decent, but there isn’t much flexibility on bottles.

• CellarMaster membership pricing of 10% off current-release wines
• Advance invitations to events, including member-only events at the winery and around the country
• Complimentary Current Release tastings for two at the winery or the Westin St. Francis Tasting Room.
• Complimentary Library tasting and CellarMaster tasting for one*
• CellarMaster Friends of Montelena pricing on specialty tours and tastings up to six people
• Use of Jade Lake islands for picnics with advanced reservation, a member-only benefit
• Access to limited production, winery-only, and member-exclusive wines
• Complimentary Virtual Host appointments from the comfort of home with a Montelena guide

Futures Memberships

* According to the website, this membership is currently waitlist only.

The Chateau Montelena Futures Membership guarantees wine lovers access to the estate’s flagship Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate Zinfandel, and Chardonnay as it is released. There are three tiers of Futures Membership, with a one-case option, a two-case option, and a four-case option. 

While you will not receive any of the new vintages until space frees up, joining the waitlist still gives you access to Futures Membership Benefits, including:

• CellarMaster membership pricing of 15-20% off current-release wines
• Access to additional formats of our Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
• Advanced invitation to events, including member-only events at the winery and around the country
• Complimentary Current Release tastings for two at the winery or the Westin St. Francis Tasting Room*
• CellarMaster Futures pricing on specialty tours and tastings for up to four people
• Use of Jade Lake islands for picnics with advanced reservation, a member-only benefit
• Access to limited production, winery-only, and member-exclusive wines
• Complimentary Virtual Host appointments from the comfort of home with a Montelena guide.

Final Thoughts

After our experience, we couldn’t help but wonder if the folks at Chateau Montelena are unable to keep up with the demand that the gorgeous property generates in peak tourism months. Or, and we hope this isn’t the case, could it be possible that they’re trying to maximize – to the detriment of the service they provide – the space on the property for tastings? 

We really hope our less-than-stellar experience was a post-pandemic staffing issue because the wine from Chateau Montelena is excellent. And, if you’ve nosed around this blog for a while, you know we love Napa Valley Chardonnay and the style that producers like Chateau Montelena are famous for.