Wine country trip - help please!
 

We live in Georgia. We are planning a trip to the wine country for our 5th anniversary. I know little of the area. I've been reading some posts and trying to talk w/ people who've been. We are planning on late April, a Tues - Sun. We'll arrive in San Fran around 11a.m. on Tues. I've heard/seen several people recommend Sonoma over Napa, yet one person told me that if you just enjoy wine, but aren't a connoisseur, then Napa would be more appropriate. However, the country like feel that I'm getting from comments of Sonoma appeals to us more. We are not well versed in wine, would people make us feel out of place in Sonoma? Also, we were thinking of stopping somewhere to spend the night along the coast (any suggestions? would Mendocino be too far out of the way for the length of our trip?) our first night there and then heading to the wine country for 3 nights and then spending the last night in San Francisco. How does this sound? Any suggestions on routes, itinerary, accomodations (budgeting about $400/night on accomodations)?

I think the people who gave you that advice had it backwards. I really think you'll enjoy Sonoma even more than you would Napa. Among other things (and don't quote me on this - I never go wine tasting), the Napa wineries all charge for tastings and the Sonoma wineries don't.

Mendocino is about 3 hours from San Francisco, so I wouldn't personally recommend it for such a short trip. If you haven't been to San Francisco before, my recommendation would be to drive straight to the wine country upon arrival, and spend the next 2-3 days there. Then return to San Francisco for the rest of the time. The wine country is only an hour north of the city, so there's really no reason to stay overnight in SF on arrival, and it would cut out one hotel move.

I think you would enjoy Sonoma also and I agree that to add Mendencino might make too much driving. We split it up and did Wine Country (although we did Napa) and SF in one trip and Mendencino in a separate trip. By the way, if you ever do get to Mendencino, I highly recommend the Albion River Inn www.albrionriverinn.com which was a great place to stay! No help on Sonoma lodgings - in SF we splurged and stayed at the Ritz Carlton. Could walk right out the door and catch a cable car everywhere.

sgg- we were there (Napa, Sonoma and SF) for the first time in October. I really like wine, but wouldn't call myself well versed. We were made to feel comfortable everywhere. Remember, these people are in the wine business and they want to educate you and hopefully sell you some wine. We drove up the coast and stayed in Healdsburg one night. It's a lovely town and the drive was amazing. I especially enjoyed the wineries in Napa. You can look at my trip report (first part on Napa and Sonoma and the coast).

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...girl&fid=1

cpg - Funny that you responded! Your thread seeking advice for your trip on Napa vs. Sonoma was the first one that I read today, my first time on Fodor's and one which I found very helpful. I would love to read your report, but when I clicked on the link it didn't bring it up. Like I said, I'm new to fodor's and it could be right before my eyes, but what should I see once I click on the link you gave me? Thanks for your post and thanks to the others who've posted, as well!

sgg, try this link -
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35163482

Napa? Sonoma? You'll enjoy either/ both. I promise :-)

Hi sgg - I am having major internet problems tonight. I don't know what was wrong with the link, but I've resurrected the post and you can find it at the top. It's very long, but you can just skim the top part which will be relevant for you. Hope it helps. I wish I were going again!

thanks ms. starrs. You are so clever - that's why I like you!!!!

Nah. You just skipped the last step.

Click on the title of the thread and then use that address to cut and paste.

You were almost there :-)
It was easy for me to find.

Southgeorgiagirl - We took a similiar trip last summer - aren't really "into" wine and I struggled with where to go/stay. Received much good advice from this site, mostly by just reading others' reports....We ended up flying into SF (from ATL!) and drove up the coast to Point Reyes - stayed at a b&b there - Ten Inverness Way - it was a lovely drive and not too long after the flight - we stopped and had dinner in Sausalito and walked around to stretch our legs. The drive from Pt Reyes to Sonoma County was, again, very pleasant and not long - with opportunity for several meandering routes, if you are interested. The coastline there is so very different from what we are familiar with, esp the Gulf; it is awesome and rugged and wild - try to drive at least part-ways along US 1 north of SF. We stayed, again in a b&b in Glen Ellen - the Glenelly Inn - and had a great time just absorbing the atmosphere as well as the wine. We did not ever have anyone make us feel as tho we didn't know what we were doing - in fact, at the Benziger Winery, once they (and we) determined that we were buying enough to have to ship some home (don't get scared - we didn't want to try to fly home with more than a bottle or two) they started offering tastes from vintages they had to "go to the back room" to get....as my husband said, they saw us coming...but still, it made us feel special. In fact, they are a good reason to stay in Glen Ellen as we found their tour to be most informative about the process and the tickets are sold on a first come/first served basis. Glen Ellen itself is a SMALL town but had a really good market - bought lunch one day there and ate it on the grounds at Ravenswood - another lovely facility - and the Girl and Fig has a cafe there that wasn't crowded...We did not venture into Napa so really can't compare the two but felt Sonoma County was easily traveled - there were signposts at most major intersections in the county pointing the way to wineries - We didn't really map out an itinerary once we were there, other than to decide where we wanted to eat and which wineries we knew we wanted to visit. We did find that we weren't able to get to as many in a day as we had thought - we decided to enjoy the journey and just took our time, rather than race from tasting room to tasting room.
Hope this helps! You will have a wonderful time!

Thanks starrs for the help on finding centralparkgirl's report and also to ausc59. All posts have been helpful!