La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard | Pure Luxury Transportation

After more than three years of planning and design, the new La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard debuted in Windsor this spring. And now, the estate is offering new experiences, including a Tasting Vineyard Tour, for a combination of wine education and culinary exploration where guests can taste wines where they’re grown.

The long build-out comes because the La Crema/Jackson Family Wines team needed to restore the Russian River Valley property’s magnificent, century-old barn. The task was one of the first orders of business after the winery purchased the 200-acre estate from former owners Richard and Saralee Kunde in 2012.

Now, transformed into a tasting room, the wood and brick multi-story space gleams with wood floors, curving stair railings, and wall accents, all capped by elegant pendant lights. Originally a hops barn, the 1900 barn was for a time home to the Kunde family.

Tastings are also held on the back deck, which opens out from the tasting bar and looks out over a hilly section of the vineyard. Split by an old creek bed and dotted with coast oak and pine, it’s an instantly transporting view of one of the original plots of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir planted by the Kundes in 1989.

La Crema currently produces four wines from Saralee’s Vineyard – a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, a Rosé of Pinot Noir, and a “Sweet As” Gewürztraminer.

For Saralee’s Tasting Vineyard Tour ($65), a wine concierge guides guests on a private tour of the estate via golf cart, explaining history and grape growing along the way. Guests taste through the wine portfolio during the ride, too.

To enjoy an elevated experience, guests can add on a gourmet picnic basket lunch ($150), including a logo’d basket to keep.