Ride a Segway to Buena Vista Winery, Founded in 1857
A three-and-a-half-hour Segway tour out of Sonoma on quiet back roads, with a picnic lunch at Buena Vista Winery. One departure a day, and one stop in the published itinerary that has since closed for good.
The ride starts in a parking lot, and that is the first honest thing about it. Sonoma Segway says on its own site that it does not have a storefront. Its reservation notes point you to a street-side lot on 1st Street East, ask you to park on the street, and ask you to turn up ten to fifteen minutes early.
What follows is a one-on-one training session on open ground, then quiet country roads out of town. Each machine carries a handlebar bag sized, in the operator's own words, for a medium purse or two or three bottles of wine. The booking form offers a single age band, 21 to 75. There is no child fare here and no senior fare above it.
Sonoma County Wine Segway TourSonoma Segway · 3.5 hours · picnic lunch included · ages 21 to 75www.viator.comAn 1857 Estate, and a Table Set Outside It
Buena Vista is the long stop. The listing's own itinerary gives it sixty minutes, and the picnic lunch happens there.
The booking listing calls Buena Vista the oldest winery in California. The winery's own About page dates its founding to 1857 and calls it California's first premium winery. California's landmark plaque at this address, No. 392, is narrower: founded in 1857, this is the birthplace of California wine.
Tastings cost extra. The operator's own pages put them anywhere from USD 25 to USD 55 per person per winery depending on which of its pages you read, and it asks USD 20 to USD 30 a head in guide gratuity on top. Two winery tastings come from the operator's own booking system, and the listing names only Buena Vista. Tasting fees are charged per winery, so budget for two of them and ask what the second stop is before you book. The listing also mentions two-for-one coupons whenever available. The winery's published experience pages describe no offer of that kind, and its one published discount goes to wine club members.
The Cheese Stop in the Itinerary Has Closed
The booking listing's itinerary has two stops, and the cheese one no longer exists.
That stop is Vella Cheese Company on 2nd Street East, listed at twenty minutes and described as a place to buy cheese. Vella Cheese Company has closed: its own site says cheese production has ceased and that the retail store and mail order are permanently closed. The Sonoma Index-Tribune puts the last day of cheese sales at 4 September 2026, sooner than the family expected, because the closing announcement cleared the shelves faster than they had planned for. Vella's own site never gave a date. It ran the news in two stages, first that production had stopped and the shop would stay open until the inventory sold, then the permanent version some time after 5 September.
The booking listing was last updated on 29 September 2026 and still carries the stop. The operator's own booking system also puts the cheese stop after the wineries, the reverse of the published order, and skips it on Sundays.
Nothing published says what goes into the building, or what the operator puts in its place. The family has said it may run pop-ups to sell off the remaining aged cheeses, with no dates set. No published source names a replacement stop, so treat the printed itinerary as one stop short and ask the operator by phone what takes its place.
One Departure a Day, and It Leaves at Ten
There is one departure a day and it leaves at ten in the morning. That holds across both published seasons, seven days a week, and the operator's own calendar showed a session on nearly every day of October 2026 with a handful blocked off.
The booked window runs 10:00 to 13:30. The operator's own page describes the same tour as four to five hours. Plan the afternoon around the longer figure. A guest review on the operator's site describes a day with no time limit on it.
- One booking on this listing takes up to six travellers. The operator's own reservation system takes a party of up to eight, and will not take one smaller than two.
- This listing accepts a single traveller, and says the tour will not be cancelled for want of numbers.
- The operator says the picnic lunch is a sandwich you order ahead, and that it also checks the food restrictions you give Viator. Put any restriction in both places.
- The operator tours rain or shine, says it can supply rain jackets for light showers, and says it may offer a van instead on wet days.
- On this booking, cancelling at least 24 hours ahead returns the full price. Inside 24 hours, nothing comes back.
Where to Turn Up
Turn up at the street parking lot on 1st Street East. The operator asks you to park on the street, which matters on a morning when the plaza is busy. There is no shopfront to check in at, so the lot is the meeting point.
The tour ends where it began. By then the handlebar bag has a job to do, and it holds two or three bottles on the way back.