More Vineyards in Napa & Sonoma

As we left the Golden Gate Bridge behind us, we turned our sights to Napa & Sonoma - the more famous wine country in California. We decided we'd stop at one vineyard in each region since we'd already visited some vineyards in the Santa Ynez valley in Central California.

Sonoma
Sonoma was first, and we stopped in the town center to look around. There's a nice little downtown area with a park and wine tastings everywhere you turn.

At the visitors center, we grabbed a map of the vineyards and settled on Nicholson Ranch, a beautiful vineyard set atop a hill. We split a tasting here and bought a bottle of Chardonnay and something red... can't remember exactly what. Then we walked around the grounds here a bit because it was just so darn beautiful.

Napa
Napa is much bigger than Sonoma, and it's right on a river which is nice, but I actually liked the small, homey feel of Sonoma better. We stopped at the visitor center here, too, but we already knew we were going to Peju Winery at a friend's suggestion.

Peju was the fanciest and grandest winery we stopped at, and the tasting was more in depth than the others, too. We learned much more about each wine here, and our host seemed to thoroughly enjoy talking about everything we sampled. It was nice to have a more unique experience at this vineyard, and the grounds were gorgeous, too. We bought a bottle of Merlot here... and any remaining space in our trunk is now filled with bottles of wine. It's a good thing we headed to colder climates next!

And here are just a few more pictures of Sonoma and Napa we took along the way:

 
Tom liked wine country, but I just LOVED it. Both days of visiting vineyards were some of my favorite days on our trip. To me, they are romantic, idyllic, picturesque, and an expression of relaxation and calm. I could visit wine country every day.

Up next: Mendocino, CA, and National Redwood Forests!