By admin 
Toast Tours isn’t just a winery transportation service — it’s an experience that’s catered for anyone from sommeliers to newcomers.
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That’s according to owner and California-native Kristina Horton, who started the company with her husband, Lars, about seven years ago.
The two had moved to Paso Robles after living in Barcelona and operating local bike tours there, which launched their love for the world of tourism.
When they finished up in Spain, they traveled back to Lars’ homeland of the Netherlands, then to South Africa.
“We had a really wonderful time, but ultimately, all roads pointed back to California,” she said. “We love it here.”
A journey to Paso Robles
Lars got a job in San Francisco in 2013, leading tours to Yosemite, Napa Valley and Monterey in buses of 45 people. But Kristina said she personally didn’t like such big group. At the same time, they also began to develop a new appreciation for wine.
“We enjoyed wine, but we didn’t know so much about it, and so we started doing much more wine tasting. … We ended up getting our intro-sommelier, and at the same time, I started working in Napa,” she said. “One of my colleagues was like, ‘If you’re trying to understand California wine, you need to go down to Paso.’ So, we came down to Paso.”
The rest is history — the Hortons packed up their things in 2014 and moved to Paso. By 2019, they had a fully operating wine touring company called Toast Tours, which recently took second place in the USA Today Readers’ Choice Awards for best wine tour in the nation.
Now, Kristin said the business isn’t just a touring service.
“We want to be focused on tours and hospitality. If you know a lot about wine — great. Let’s geek out. Let’s talk about malolactic fermentation and carbonic maceration,” she said. “But if you’re new to wine, I don’t want you to feel intimidated by that verbiage either. Let’s talk about how to properly taste wine. … Let’s talk about why do you like it.”
Toast Tours first started out as a true group experience, combining small groups of strangers into larger tours, Kristina explained.
But then COVID hit, and their business model switched to private tours — a standard that continues to this day.
“All of our tours are completely private and very curated for each guest,” Kristina said.
Who can book a Toast Tour? How much?
Experiences can accommodate groups ranging from two people to 14, and offer options on foot or by car.
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Tin City is a guided walking tour, where guests meet the guide at the heart of the industrial community of wineries, breweries and restaurants.
For $120 per person, the three-hour-long Saturday tour includes samples at each site visited and a family-style lunch.
Van tours around Paso Robles AVA at a minimum take five hours. But with larger groups it could take longer, depending on the number of stops, Kristina said.
Each booking is anticipated to take, at a minimum, five hours. But with larger groups it could take longer, depending on the number of stops, Kristina said.
“I usually tell people about five and a half hours for three wineries,” she said. “But if people want to just do two wineries leisurely, that’s completely fine. If they want to try to do four wineries or more, that’s also completely fine.”
Van tours on weekdays run for $95 an hour and $105 on the weekends, regardless of how many are in a group.
So for a group of two, transportation would cost about $300 per person. For a group of 10, that number could be as affordable as $60 each. These transportation fees do not include additional driver gratuity and wine tasting fees, which can vary per location.
How to book a tour
Overall, the Hortons want to make sure they are maximizing tourists’ time while in Paso Robles.
“We’re really lucky to have traveled a lot, and we’ve done a lot of tours ourselves,” Kristina said. “It was important to us that we built the type of tour that we want to have when we go somewhere new because we know what it feels like to get somewhere and be overwhelmed by the amount of information on the internet.”
She said Toast Tours wants to be the guide that meets guests in the middle, helping them to feel more comfortable and connected.
“We just wanted to bring wine country to life,” Kristina said, “and share with people what makes Paso so special.”
For more information about Toast Tours and booking, visit toasttours.com.
This story was originally published September 3, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline “How couple built their award-winning wine tour business in Paso Robles.”
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