When I was pregnant, everyone was so fond of telling me that everything was about to change. First of all, duh. Second of all, those people should have been telling me that just because life changes with kids doesn’t mean you have to give up what you love. That truth goes for travel—hence the existence of this entire blog—and it doesn’t have to go for wine tasting, either. If you’ve ever thought that you can’t do the things you used to love now that you have kids—i.e. exploring wineries—this post is for you. It’ll show you that you can go wine tasting with kids—and will go into detail just how to make it work!

Plus, wine tasting and kids totally go together: After all, the perfect wine tasting foods—crackers, cheese and grapes—are pretty much the only thing my kids eat anyway. Coincidence? I think not.

Wine tasting with kids is totally doable. As long as you plan ahead, take the necessary precautions and know your wine tasting with tots in tow will be slightly different than your bachelorette days, then your entire fam is poised for a great time!

And yes, below I’ll go over each of these steps so your whole family will love wine tasting with kids.

So pack up the minivan, thank your designated driver one million times and go! Wine country is waiting.

Go wine tasting with kids—and still enjoy yourself!

Get ready for these 11 tips to make wine tasting with the whole family a blast for everyone.

1. Limit the number of wineries you hit

Before you plan a loop to visit five different wineries in a day, remember you’ll have to transition your kids for each of those—interrupt their play, get them in a car seat and so forth.

Instead, pick just one or two kid-friendly wineries and settle in. You can still taste a good number of wines that way, and wine tasting with kids will be much more relaxed.

2. Look for kid activities

When you pick which wineries you’ll visit, by all means choose ones where you’ll enjoy the wine. But also consider your kids, and find wineries with kid-friendly activities.

Stoller Family Estates in Dayton, Oregon, for example, has a disc golf baskets that kids love (and discs you can borrow from the winery). And Villa Catalana Cellars outside Oregon City has a bocce ball court and a giant dragon sculpture next to a cave where my kids’ imaginations run wild. (Read my full post on going to Villa Catalana with kids to see everything this winery has to offer families.)

3. Pack food for everyone

Most wineries offer some food—but often, the menu is limited to crackers and cheese. If your kids are anything like mine, you’ll want to bring a variety of snacks so they don’t get hangry and force you to abandon wine tasting with kids forever!

But don’t neglect to bring food for yourself, too. Pack a picnic for everyone—just about all wineries welcome outside food as long as you eat it outside the tasting room.

4. Explore the winery grounds

Once you’re done with your picnic, go wander! Kids’ energy levels aren’t meant to be cooped up inside a tasting room, so let them burn off energy. At certain points in the season, some wineries let kids walk in the vineyards. (My friend happened to time one wine tasting visit perfectly right after harvest, and the staff there let the kids pick the remaining grapes right off the vines!)

Your kids might also find non-wine-related spots within the winery. Torii Mor in Dundee, Oregon has a beautiful Japanese garden as well as a hazelnut orchard, for example. My girls love to chase squirrels in the orchard.

5. Get outside

Even if the winery grounds aren’t expansive—or the time of year makes playing in the vineyards off-limits—take your tastings outside. Your kids will be much happier (as will other wine tasters) if you stay outside.

Bring a picnic blanket, a few games your kids love and even bubbles to make the outdoors where you want to be. The adults will just need to take turns going inside to get the next pour on the tasting flight.

6. Limit your tastings

Heavy daytime drinking with your kids is generally not a great idea. Pace yourself and drink within reason; save the moms-gone-wild moments for a kid-free weekend. 😉

7. Designate a driver

This should go without saying, but if you’re wine tasting with kids—or without—you need a designated driver. Those wine tasting pours look tiny but catch up to you!

8. Invite other families

When you go wine tasting with families, all the kids will entertain each other. That means you’ll get to spend more time savoring each pour of a flight rather than chasing after kids who are trying to climb stacks of barrels.

9. Order a glass of wine instead of a flight

I love wine tasting, but sometimes when I go to wineries with kids I opt for a glass instead of a tasting flight. Why? Having a full glass allows me to wander the winery grounds and hang out with my kids rather than constantly going back to the tasting room for the next pour.

10. Teach kids about wine

Considering I’m writing an entire post on how to go wine tasting with kids, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m really open with my kids about wine and alcohol in general. Obvi, this doesn’t mean I give my kids any alcohol to drink; it just means that I’m super straightforward. I don’t call wine “mommy juice” or hide it from my children. They know it’s a drink for grown-ups, not kids.

Since wine isn’t taboo, I’m open to teaching my kids about wine. After all, the wine making process is super interesting! Showing them the fruit on the vine, the barrels and the finished product fascinates my girls. And you can always go for the gross-out factor, since pretty much all kids like gross stuff: Talk about how winemaking depends on naturally occurring yeasts that grow on the skin of grapes, or ask winemakers about how they manage fruit flies during crush.

(My husband worked crush one year and can tell a few stories!)

11. Consider kids’ naps

If your children still nap, consider the timing of going wine tasting with kids. You might want to go when the winery opens so you can drive home during their nap time. If they’re good at napping in a carrier or stroller, bring that along. But if you want to enjoy your time wine tasting, don’t expect them to skip their nap and not make you pay for it.

Wine tasting and breastfeeding

If you’re breastfeeding and going wine tasting, you have a few extra things to consider and plan for. You have a few options:

• Bring along pumped breast milk or formula for your baby to drink while you’re drinking alcohol, then pump and dump. This is the safe route if you plan on drinking moderately or if your alcohol tolerance is low.
• Limit your alcohol intake. Alcohol is present in breastmilk at the same percentage as it is in your blood. The La Leche League advises that if you’re sober enough to drive, you’re sober enough to breastfeed.

For more on deciding how you’ll balance breastfeeding and wine tasting, read the full La Leche League article on breastfeeding and alcohol.

You can go wine tasting with kids!

When I mention going wine tasting with kids, many mom friends’ eyes go wide as if to say, “Wait, we can do that?!”

Yes, yes you can!

You just read about how to pick a kid-friendly winery, what to bring to keep your kids entertained and fed, smart timing to go wine tasting and how to manage breastfeeding while drinking alcohol.

For kids, going wine tasting isn’t about the wine, obviously. It’s more about doing something out of the ordinary with their family and spending time together.

There’s another benefit, too: When you go wine tasting as a family, your kids will see you doing things you enjoy because you like them. In other words, kids learn that the world doesn’t revolve around them 100% of the time. Not every weekend has to be filled with children’s birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese; the family can do something Mom wants to do, too.

I’m a firm believer that my children learn how to treat themselves by watching how I treat myself. If I put my interests and needs at the top of my priority list, they’ll learn that they deserve to be happy and fulfilled, too.

Going wine tasting with kids isn’t necessarily going to be a huge life lesson. But incorporating the things you love—like visiting wineries and trying new wines—into family life will make a difference in family fun.

So cheers!