San Francisco and Wine Country Trip
 

We are coming to SF on August 17th for business on Saturday. We will have Friday afternoon and evening plus Saturday evening in SF. From there we would like to travel north to the wine country. Any suggestions for wineries, lodging, restaurants would be appreciated for SF and wine country. We fly out of SF on Wednesday morning. We are first time travelers to California, not always into the tourist places. We recently returned from Germany and all your suggestions were great!

I prefer Sonoma over Napa. Check out the Trojan Horse Inn, a nice little B&B near the town of Sonoma:

http://www.trojanhorseinn.com/

Some great places to visit include

Schug
Nicholson Ranch
B R Cohn
Domaine Carneros (for the views & chateau ambiance, not the grape)
Artesia (sp??)

First let me explain this area. There is the County of Napa...and the town of Napa. There is the county of Sonoma, the town of Sonoma, but the county seat is in Santa Rosa. When people prefer Sonoma, they can mean the town or the county itself. I prefer the county of Sonoma. You can drive over the Golden Gate bridge, and then straight up hwy #101, past Santa Rosa, and you will come to Healdsburg. This is about 1.5 hrs. North of the Golden Gate Bridge. This is the area of the Russian River, Dry Creek and Alexander Valley wines. Lots of lovely restaurants, shopping and tasting rooms in Healdsburg. Many B&B's, hotels of various costs, and private vacation rentals. When you decide where you want to be..(and you can drive a loop from Healdsburg over to the Napa valley, and around to the town of Sonoma and back to Healdsburg..its a days drive with all the stops you will want to make..) then we can give more concrete suggestions about where to go and stay.

We did a similar trip over Thanksgiving week a few years ago, and it was fun, relaxing, romantic- just a great memory.

We stayed at the Hotel Palomar in San Francisco. We really enjoyed the funky decor and the amazing bed. The location was great for us too. I was at a convention at the Moscone Center for the first two days, right nearby, but we could walk all over.

We loved dim sum in Chinatown, eating great Italian food at sidewalk cafes in North Beach, and doing lots of walking, seeing the beautiful neighborhoods. We were unimpressed with Fisherman's Wharf, but really loved the city overall.

We then rented a car and drove up to the wine country. We went a little off the beaten path to the Russian River area. We stayed at a gorgeous cabin through Russian River Getaways. We wanted a hot tub under the redwoods, which we got from them and thoroughly enjoyed. They were very nice to deal with. If I went back in warm weather, I would also want river front.

From our cabin we drove to all the cool towns and visited many wineries. Our favorite was Gary Farrell, where we had a wonderful tour.

Each day we would buy a bottle of wine to build our dinner around that evening, then stop at the Safeway in Guerneville for ingredients, and cook, laze in the hottub, relax in our beautiful cabin all evening.

We also spent a day at the beach, hiking around Bodega Bay and driving on the coast. Gorgeous views, seals, crashing waves, etc.

Have a great trip! This is making me want to go back!

Lake Sonoma and Rutherfords...two great tasting rooms in Healdsburg, right down town. That whole area is just loaded with great wineries, big and small.

I think you mean Rosenblum. Rutherford is in Napa. You can spend an entire day just tasting around the square...visiting shops, etc as you go!

http://www.vervu.com/wineries_list.htm