Tasting All Afternoon and Driving Home

This page exists because it is the single most predictable risk in Napa and Sonoma, and because the way people misjudge it is specific and worth naming. A tasting day is not a night out. It is five or six hours of small pours in daylight, spread across several stops, with food somewhere in the middle. It does not feel like drinking. That is exactly the problem.

What the law says

Vehicle Code section 23152(a) makes it unlawful for a person who is under the influence of any alcoholic beverage to drive a vehicle. Subdivision (b) makes it unlawful for a person who has 0.08 percent or more, by weight, of alcohol in their blood to drive a vehicle.

Read those as two separate offenses, because they are. Subdivision (b) is the number everyone knows. Subdivision (a) does not require any particular number — being under the influence is enough. A driver can be under the legal threshold and still be arrested and convicted under (a) on the strength of driving behavior and observed impairment. "I was under the limit" is not the defense people assume it is.

Why a tasting day is harder to judge

Pour sizes at a tasting are not standard and they are not consistent between rooms. A generous tasting flight can add up to considerably more than the person drinking it believes, because there is no obvious unit to count. Spitting helps and most visitors do not. The alcohol content of the wines being poured varies. Time between stops passes faster than people estimate. And nothing about the setting — daylight, food, a garden, conversation — signals what a bar signals.

The honest advice is that self-assessment does not work well in these conditions, for anyone. Which is why the answer is structural rather than a judgment call.

The structural answers, in order of how well they work

1. A designated driver who is not tasting at all. Not tasting a little. Not at all. Rotate it across trips if you go regularly.
2. A hired driver or a tour. The cost of a car and driver for a day is real, and it is a fraction of what the alternative costs.
3. Rideshare, with the caveat that coverage out in the valley thins after dark and on the back roads, so check it is actually available where your last stop is before you rely on it.
4. Stay over. Frequently the cheapest option once you count what it replaces.

What does not work: coffee, food after the fact, an hour in the parking lot, or feeling fine. Time is the only thing that lowers blood alcohol, and it works slowly.

What a DUI does to your insurance situation

We are an insurance office, so let us be direct about this part.

A DUI conviction is one of the most serious items that can appear on a driving record. Insurance Code section 1861.02(a) makes the insured's driving safety record the first of California's three mandatory rating factors, ahead of annual mileage and years of driving experience. That is the category a DUI lands in, and it is the one the law says carries the most weight.

Beyond the rate, a DUI commonly brings an SR-22 requirement — a certificate your insurer files with the DMV confirming you carry the required coverage — which has to be maintained for a period of years. It narrows which carriers will offer you a policy at all. And it lasts: the effect on a record is measured in years, not months.

And that is only the insurance consequence. It sits alongside the criminal case, the license consequences, the cost of defense, and whatever happened to anyone else involved.

If someone else is driving your car

If you hand your keys to somebody who then causes harm, that is generally your policy that responds first, because coverage tends to follow the vehicle. Which is a practical reason to care about the sobriety of whoever is driving your car, not only your own.

Already dealing with a filing requirement? Tell us where you stand and we will find what is actually available to you.