What makes Yolo & Winters wine country distinct: the appellation story, signature grapes, landscape and how to taste it well.
Yolo & Winters wine country means the Capay Valley's ranch country, the golden Dunnigan Hills, Davis's lavender-framed edge and downtown Winters' restaurant blocks. Set 30 to 60 minutes northwest of Sacramento across the Capay Valley, Dunnigan Hills and Winters, the region rewards travelers who treat the drive itself as part of the tasting.
The anchor experience is Seka Hills in Brooks, where the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation pours estate wines beside its olive oils on ancestral Capay Valley land, the stop that orients everything else you taste here.
The signature is tribal estate wines tasted with olive oil, Dunnigan Hills Tempranillo and walkable wine-town evenings. These are wines shaped by their setting rather than fashion, and the best rooms lean into that identity.
For buying, the local wisdom runs: Matchbook's Tempranillo, the wine that carried the Dunnigan Hills to statewide shelves, plus Seka Hills olive oil and Turkovich cheese for the full county case
start at Seka Hills for the wine-and-olive-oil tasting that defines the county, then Matchbook's patio for the Dunnigan Hills, finishing with the two-room Winters stroll
Timing matters: Spring wildflowers light the Capay Valley, fall brings crush to the Dunnigan Hills, and Winters pours year-round; summer evenings belong to the town patios
Every winery we track in the region, each with its own page.
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