Sonoma, Part One

For those who don’t know, Kenny and I just got back from a vacation to California wine country. We were in the Sonoma Valley for five days with my parents and Jeff and Erin.

Yeah, it didn’t suck.

Mom and Dad gave the four of us this trip for Christmas last year, and our departure day finally arrived two Saturdays ago. We had a very early flight out of New Orleans, so that meant I had to drop Riley off on Friday afternoon. Kenny’s parents very graciously agreed to watch him while we were off drinking wine for 4 days straight.

Again, although I did miss my boy very much, the trip did not suck.

We had beautiful weather, a kick-butt rental house, and delicious food. We put more than 500 miles on our rental van, met lots of wonderful people, and came home with 16+ cases of wine between all six of us. We visited 24 different wineries, spent as much time as we could outside, and did lots of family bonding.

I’ll say it one more time: this trip did not suck.

After meeting up with Mom and Dad in Houston, the six of us landed at the SFO airport around 11am on Saturday. We took a whirlwind two-hour tour of San Francisco for Jeff and Erin’s benefit (they had never been to California before this trip) and then headed across the Golden Gate for lunch in Sausalito. We ate on the water at Horizons, a great place Kenny and I have been to both times we’ve been in Cali together. The mussels appetizer is just so, so good. Jeff even drank some of the leftover sauce with a straw.

  

We arrived in the valley early enough to stop at a couple of wineries before they closed down for the day, so Jeff and Erin got their first real “taste” of wine country. Viansa’s tasting room was set high on a hill overlooking their vineyards while Cline’s was low with lush grounds and beautiful flowers. And both were setting up to host weddings later in the evening!

We made a grocery run after the two winery stops and then finally went to check out our rental house (fabulous!). That night we had dinner at a great little place in downtown Sonoma called The Red Grape. We sat out back on the patio in the gorgeous weather and shared 3 different pizzas before heading back to the house to get some sleep before our first full wine day. We would spend Sunday close to home, sticking to the areas of Glen Ellen and Kenwood. (See here for a map of the entire Sonoma Valley.)

Mom really went all out in the planning of this trip, and as such we were able to do a few unique things while we were in Sonoma. One of those special activities took place on Sunday morning. We made a quick stop in to Imagery (Alec was great and the wines were very tasty….a perfect way to start the day!) before making our way to B.R. Cohn.

  

Mom and Dad are wine club members with B.R. Cohn, so she was able to set up a private tour and tasting for us. Justin showed us around, educated us on the history of B.R. Cohn and their winemaking process, and poured us samples of some really great wines. And Phil provided us with tastes of a handful of wines from their “Classic Car” series. We spent a total of two hours there and didn’t regret a single second. All of us left having purchased something to ship home, and we were officially off to a great start.

After a break for lunch at the fabulous Fig Cafe in Glen Ellen…..

…..we were back on track. Although none quite compared to B.R. Cohn, we were able to visit six more wineries on Sunday afternoon: Loxton (run by a native Aussie), Chateau St. Jean (crowded and commercial), Kaz (interesting and colorful owner), Landmark (gorgeous grounds but we decided not to taste), Ledson (the castle), and Matanzas Creek (unfortunately had just closed but the lavender fields made the drive worth it).

  

After inhaling as much of the intoxicating lavender that we could handle (and avoiding the buzzing honeybees all throughout the bushes), we drove back to the house to get started on dinner preparations. Since Kenny’s sister lives so close to wine country, she and Paul decided to drive over to join us for dinner. We made good use of the outdoor kitchen, grilling steaks and mushrooms, and pairing those with baked potatoes and salad. Again, it was a glorious night, and the 8 of us had a fantastic meal out in the backyard.

And with that, our first full day in wine country came to a close. We would wake up and do it all over again for the next two days before we were forced to return to the heat of the South.

For the last time, this trip did not suck.

Stay tuned for coverage of the second half of our trip, as well as what Riley was up to with Grandma and Grandpa while we were gone!