SLO County ranked third best for wine in California. See how it scored
Raise a glass — San Luis Obispo County is one of the best wine counties in California.
In a recent ranking, SLO County ranked third for wine among California’s 58 counties, coming in behind the big vino regions of Napa and Sonoma counties.
San Luis Obispo County received an overall weighted score of 52.37 from LawnStarter, which gathered publicly available data on the counties and ranked them based on five categories: access, quality, accolades, entertainment and accommodations.
Scores in each of the individual categories were averaged to determine the best overall.
That leads to the big question: Why didn’t SLO County rank No. 1?
San Luis Obispo County far out-performed the winner, Napa County, in one area: accommodations, where it ranked No. 2 compared to Napa’s No. 20. It also outperformed overall second place winner Sonoma County, which ranked ninth for accommodations.
That field looked at the number of accommodations available to visitors, the share of highly rated ones, average consumer ratings and average nightly rate for accommodations.
SLO County also did better than Sonoma County in the quality ranking, coming in in third compared to Sonoma County’s 10th place finish. That category looked at the share of highly rated wineries, average consumer rating and average number of reviews per winery.
In the remaining fields of access, accolades and entertainment, SLO County ranked behind Napa and Sonoma, though it placed in the top five in each category.
Overall, it was a “forgone conclusion” that Napa County would come out on top, LawnStarter said
“Napa outnumbers all other California counties in vintners, with nearly 270 more than Sonoma (No. 2) and 840 more than San Luis Obispo (No. 3),” the group wrote. “What’s more, Napa wines earned the most gold medals over the past four years, and the county’s wineries are the most reviewed (AKA the most popular) by consumers.”
Sonoma, “the next most recognizable name in California wine” came out ahead due to its “unmatched access to wine, numerous awards and the most events celebrating the county’s amore for vino,” according to LawnStarter.
Want to check out the full rankings? Go to lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/best-california-wine-counties.
This story was originally published May 24, 2023 at 9:00 AM.
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