Sonoma

9th September 2009 The Sonoma and Napa valleys are great places to visit, very picturesque, and not unlike a browner version of home (their grass seems to be brown rather than green). With their many vineyards stretching for as far as the eye can see. However, aside from wine tasting and shopping in the small and very pretty towns in the area such as Sonoma, St Helena and Healdsburg, and the hot springs and spas available around Calistoga, we’ve found very little to do here apart from wine tasting. The area lives, breathes and sells wine. That’s fine, but unfortunately without staying in one of those pretty little towns (and everything is so far apart that even then), you do need a car to get around here. ...

8th October 2009 We were picked up at 10.30 by Jennifer from Terriffic Tours (clue’s in the name!) before heading off to pick up another couple Amy and Tony (hi guys!) from New York. That was our group for the day which was lovely, and the fact that we got on really well with Amy and Tony who are in town for a conference (my type of conference!), we chatted for most of the day (in between tastings of course!). ...

For our first day in Sonoma County, we wanted to go to the Ravenswood winery. Back at home, we are quite partial to a drop or two of the Ravenswood Zinfandel wine, which is produced here in California, so making that our first stop seemed to be the right thing to do. Ravenswood run tours every day at 10:30, so we arrived shortly after 10 and paid our $15 each for the tour. We were then given four different white wines and a rose to taste. Despite not drinking much white, there were a couple in amongst there that would go down very nicely on a summers day! ...