Small-group tours to Sonoma's backroads, family-owned wineries — three tastings, a winery picnic lunch, and a storytelling guide, with lodging pickup included.
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Small-group tours to Sonoma's backroads, family-owned wineries — three tastings, a winery picnic lunch, and a storytelling guide, with lodging pickup included.
For more than twenty years, Platypus has built its reputation on a simple promise: skip the crowded tasting bars and spend the day where the winemakers actually are. Their join-in tours gather eight to twelve guests on a shuttle bound for small, family-owned wineries tucked along Sonoma's back roads — places most visitors would never find on their own. The style is deliberately easygoing and snob-free, with guides who fill the drive with local history, culture, and winemaking lore. Nearly one in five reservations comes from returning guests, which says more than any brochure could.
Platypus runs two distinct Sonoma routes. The Sonoma Valley tour runs daily, picking up from inns and addresses in Sonoma, Glen Ellen, and Kenwood, with a central meeting spot at Sonoma Plaza. The North Sonoma tour runs Fridays and Saturdays, covering the Russian River and Healdsburg backcountry, with pickups in Santa Rosa, Windsor, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, and Healdsburg. Both visit three intimate wineries and include a picnic lunch served in a winery setting; guides handle wine purchases along the way and shipping boxes are available. Private tours can be arranged for groups, and last-minute inquiries are welcome.
Don Rickard — the self-titled Platypus-in-Chief — founded Platypus Tours in 2004 with a used tour bus bought on eBay. A former general manager of the Market St. Helena restaurant, he borrowed the concept from a small-group bus tour he'd taken in Bruges in 1999 and built it around an anti-wine-snob conviction: small backroads wineries, social shuttles, and guides who make the day. Two decades on, the company runs more than 30 vehicles with a staff of about 60, and Rickard built a commercial kitchen at the Napa headquarters so the tours' picnic lunches are made in-house. Nearly one in five reservations comes from returning guests. Rickard has since begun his retirement, passing the company to new owners Chad and Scott — operators of several Oahu transportation companies including Platinum Transportation and Hele Hele Shuttle — who launched the Platypus Perks guest-benefit program in 2026 on the same local-knowledge, personal-hospitality values.
Guided tour, lodging or central-meeting-point pickup, three winery visits, and a picnic lunch served at a winery.
Winery tasting fees (about $20–$25 per person, often waived with wine purchase) are not included.
Join-in tours cancel or modify free up to 24 hours ahead; a $35-per-person fee applies inside that window. Private tours cancel free up to 7 days out, then 50% of the tour cost.
More than 30 vehicles, from Lexus and Volvo XC90 SUVs and a Cadillac Escalade to Ford Transit tour vans, open-air club-car-style shuttles, and 11–12-passenger tour shuttles, with larger vehicles for private groups up to 50. Join-in tours run on roomy small-group shuttles; picnic lunches come from the company's own commercial kitchen at the Napa headquarters.
Not ideal for travelers seeking a private pace on the join-in format — itineraries are guide-picked and shared with 8–12 fellow guests — or for those set on big-name appointment estates rather than small backroads producers.
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