Salamandre Wine

 

Contact Information

SALAMANDRE WINE CELLARS
108 Don Carlos Drive
Aptos, CA 95003
Tel 831-685-0321
email: newt@cruzio.com
Web URL: www.salamandrewine.com

Order Information

We welcome your order by mail, e-mail (newt@cruzio.com), or phone.
Click here for our Order Form

We’re happy to ship UPS within California. Out of state shipping, however, has become increasingly difficult, with the additional feature of frequent changes in regulations, permits, and taxes. We’ll be happy to receive an e-mail to give you the latest information, but we must be candid that interstate commerce isn’t what it used to be.

Handling & UPS shipping in CA: $12, $18 and $26 for 2, 6, and 12 bottle packs, respectively. UPS out-of-state: please ask us, as rates vary by region.

Local distributors of Salamandre Wines

Visiting Salamandre Wine Cellars

Salamandre does not have a tasting room, and we are not able to receive drop-in visitors in deference our neighbors. We do open our cellar door for Invitational Tastings for our mailing list customers on several weekend dates throughout the year.  (See What’s New? to check the next date).  Please e-mail us at newt@cruzio.com or call (831) 685-0321 to be put on the mailing list.

If you do visit, internet directions are generally helpful.  Allow me to add one embellishment—you really, really need to use your odometer and keep 1.1 miles in your head.

  • From the Aptos Post Office at the corner of Trout Gulch Road and Cathedral Drive.  Mark your odometer, please!
  • Turn left—uphill on Cathedral.  You will crest the hill and then descend slowly into a narrow, wooded canyon.  Go exactly 1.1 miles from the Post Office.  
  • At 1.1 miles, you’ll need to slow down approaching a tight leftward curve, and that’s where you turn Right on Don Carlos Drive.  Don Carlos is not marked with a green road sign, but rather a funky wooden sign attached to a block of concrete at the intersection…next to a row of mailboxes. 
  • If you miss Don Carlos, the street numbers jump to the 800’s, and in 0.4 mile, you’ll arrive at the Monte Toyon Camp…where you can safely turn around. 
  • Honest, if you keep on driving for miles, you’ll find no wineries up in those hills.

Click here for complete, printable driving directions in PDF format

A word about access. Salamandre Cellars has no tasting room and we are not open to the general public. Our private invitational tastings are held in the winery, which is carved into the hillside next to our home. Parking is very limited and our surfaces can be uneven, steep, and slippery. This is not an appropriate environment for unsupervised children, high heels, neckties, or stuffy attitudes, but it is also, unfortunately, not accessible to wheelchairs. We are pleased to make special advance arrangements so that guests with mobility challenges can sample our wines comfortably. Please Call 831-685-0321, or e-mail newt@cruzio.com. Thanks.

And a word about ID’s. I became a pediatrician in 1975 and my partner, Dave South, a dermatologist a few years later, and we’ve both become eerily accurate in estimating the ages of young people. We’ve also passed through our adolescent and college years in a society where the legal minimum age for alcohol service is 21. Between us, we’ve raised five children safely to the age of majority under the same societal rules. There just aren’t a whole lot of secrets left about underage drinking. If you are bringing a companion who is not yet 21, perhaps as a designated driver, we have soft drinks and water available. However, please do not ask me to put even a teaspoon of wine in his or her empty glass. I would like to spare us both the indignity of asking to see the driver’s license, which I will assuredly do. And if you have passed this chronological milestone, and I ask to see ID anyway, please accept that as a compliment to your youthful vitality. Thanks for your understanding.

Wells Shoemaker MD, Winemaker