My DH, our two young adult sons, and I will have one day (a Saturday, unfortunately) to do a quick tour of wine country, a week from now, on Aug. 19. I've just spent most of a week in San Francisco - tomorrow we leave for San Simeon, Monterrey, and Yosemite, arriving back in the SF area Friday night. We'll stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Oakland to make it easy to get to the airport for our Sunday morning flight. Given our brief amount of time available, and where we're starting from, can any of you give me some good recommendations of where to go and which wineries to visit? I'd like a combination of beautiful scenery and interesting wineries (hopefully with good wine, too!). I'm told the wine from Napa is somewhat better, but it's more likely to be crowded on a weekend than Sonoma - true? How much more crowded? Is the scenery very different in the two valleys (I seem to recall hearing that Sonoma is more scenic)? Wineries within a reasonable driving distance of each other would be a plus, too, as we don't want to feel rushed. I'd appreciate any guidance.

You'll find representation in both camps on this board & there are a ton of posts on this topic. Please do a search. In short, I prefer Sonoma, as it is (in my opinion) more friendly, quieter, equal or better wines, more scenic & little or few tasting fees. In Sonoma (in no particular order) Ledson, St. Francis, Preston, Quivera, Imagery, B. R. Cohn & J all come to mind. & there are, of course, many more.

Thank you so much, SAnParis. I really appreciate your response, and especially the other thread that you topped for me. I'm sorry that I didn't respond sooner - we were travelling for the week before our day in wine country, staying in hotels with no internet access (well, one was suposed to have it, but it was on the fritz - another had a satelite uplink, which was painfully slow, then it died - so I gave up).

I did do a search on Fodor's, but found such an overwhelming amount of information, that I had hoped that a question with our specifics would give me some suggestions more targeted to our particular needs (e.g first timers on a Saturday - so more traffic- a short amount of time, wanting a good mix of beautiful scenery and good wine).

I wrote down your suggestions, and the info from the thread you topped for me, and made a tentative plan, and ended up with a day we were all happy with. We did our wine tour a little over a week ago, and I thought I'd report back on what we did.

We got a later start than I'd hoped, due to a fun but late night the night before, and lack of sleep. We decided to head to the Healdsburg locale, based on the info I got here, and the comments of one of my son's friends that that is a really beautiful area.

We ran into a lot of traffic on 101 on the way up there - very slow, frustrating, bumper-to-bumper crawling. As a result, by the time we got here, it was lunch time. We first stopped by J winery, as my son has a co-worker who speaks highly of it. However, their tasting fee was quite high - either $20 or $30 apeice, which included some small food pairings - but apparently not much - and with four of us, who were pretty hungry by that point, we decided to forgo that.

We went in search of the Chateau Souverain Winery, as another poster had mentioned their nice patio restaurant. We found it, but it has been bought by Francis Ford Coppola, and it is as yet a "new, unnamed winery" - their working name at the moment is "Moving On" (this is phase 2 - it was "Moving In" earlier this summer). They still have a lovely patio restaurant overlooking the vineyards, as well as an indoor restaurant. Francis Coppola brought over a chef from Italy to oversee the kitchen, and we had a great lunch there - delicious thin-crusted pizzas and salad. We followed lunch with a wine tasting - they waive the tasting fee for those who eat in the restaurant.

Next we went to Ferrari Carano. In addition to some good wines (they have an especially good chardonnay), they have beautifully landscaped grounds, and a really lovely garden with water features to wander through.

It was getting late by then - we had hoped to go to David Caffaro, just down the road, but discovered they close at 4:30 (it was about 4:32 when we drove by), so went looking for Quivera, which we knew was open until 5:00. We found it in plenty of time; it's a much smaller operation than the other two, so it was nice to experience that difference.

After that, it was too late to visit more wineries, but was too early for dinner, so we drove around enjoying the beautiful scenery. We drove out to Lake Sonoma, and found a couple of nice overlooks to see the lake. Afterwards we went into Healdsburg to find someplace to eat. We ended up at the Dry Creek Kitchen, which was excellent. We couldn't get into the main restaurant, as we didn't have a reservation, but the patio tables, and tables in the lobby of the Healdsburg Hotel next door are available on a first-come basis, so we were in luck. There was a jazz duo playing in the lobby during our meal, which was very nice (apparently they only play on Friday and Saturday nights).

We enjoyed our day, and feel we just scratched the surface. The next time we're in California, maybe DH and I will stay at someplace nice and romantic in the area and have a couple of days to spend there, which woulkd be fun. Thanks again for your help.

Stay in Sonoma.

A few suggestions:

Nicholson
Schug
B.R. Cohn
Artesia
Domaine Carneros chateau

Cakebread

Sara has already come and gone, folks.
AND written a trip report !


R5

Check out Mary's Pizza Shack if you go to Sonoma. It is not as bad as it sounds! They have delicious pizza!!

Glad you enjoyed your trip. Usually @ J we get a couple of the food pairings to share/split & you used to be able to purchase them individually. Perhaps that has changed. You hit some good ones on your trip & 2 that are particularly scenic. As I am sure you noticed there is a virtual plethora of options. I don't recall if you favor a certain type of wine, but if so, you may want to plan your next trip around a varietal (that is always fun/interesting). Also check out www.calitalia.com. Ciao.

Sara

Thanks for the trip report. We will probably have to visit on a weekend, so I was interested in your experience.

What time did you start (and from where)? What would be a good time to start the trip up 101(from the San Rafael area)on a Sunday? I know this isn't a good day to go, but it may end up being our only option. We will probably only visit a couple of wineries in one area. Only one of us actually drinks wine; we're mostly interested in the tours, scenery, and just being there.

Maj, as I said, we got a lot later start than we'd hoped - I think we left a bit after 10:00. We started from our hotel in Oakland, next to the airport. If you're leaving from the San Rafael area, you'll already be a lot closer than we were to start with. I'm afraid I can't advise you on when to start, as I've only driven there that one time, maybe someone else can help you with that. The traffic was pretty bad until we got north of Santa Rosa, then it eased up. Once we got off the highway and onto the back roads, it was fine. The area around Healdsburg, especially Dry Creek Road and West Dry Creek Road, was beautiful, and made for a lovely drive.

SAnParis, "J" didn't offer the food pairings seperately from the wine tasting, that was our only choice (at least on the Saturday we were there). Since we were paying for four of us, we thought it was pretty steep, that's why we opted our of that, although I'm sure it would have been good.

maj-If you are going up to Healdsburg
leave around 10:30-11:00 from San Rafael
and shoot up to Healdsburg area for lunch-NOTE*-there is considerable construction on Hwy 101 at Hwy 12
through Santa Rosa-shouldn't be too bad on Sunday at this hour.

If you decide to go east over into Sonoma via Hwy 37, be SURE to check the
Infineon Raceway website-if your Sunday is a race day-it will be a mess !

Let me know, once you have chosen an area, and I'll try to help with the
"back-roads"

R5

Thanks R5.

After looking further into it, we are probably going to head east toward Sonoma (we are actually staying in Novato). So if you have any back road advice that would be great. And thanks for the heads up about the race. That is exactly the kind of thing we need to know.

'lo R'sy

We'll always have St Helena.

topping for lindaq