California Wine Weekend Spring 2019

In April of 2019 we extended a business trip in the bay area and traveled north to Santa Rosa for our first trip into California’s amazing wine country. Not exactly a Midwestern weekender but it was still only a few hours from where I was working that week. There are hundreds of wineries in the area and we chose to focus our time in the Napa and Sonoma regions. Lucky for us, we were invited along by some family members who had already planned a number of stops, so we had a good plan to start from.

Getting There

We flew into San Francisco and rented a car, Napa Valley is about 90 miles north and this trip was going to involve some driving. We didn’t bother with any of the San Francisco sights because we honestly didn’t have enough time to do them justice. We did make time for one stop though, the Golden Gate Bridge, since it was on the way. The bridge area offers easy access for pictures from the south side at the site of the old batteries at Fort Winfield Scott. It’s free and offers some great views of the bridge. “That Picture” however, the one you’ve all seen, must be taken from the north side of the bridge and is a little trickier to find, it gets the bridge and the town of San Francisco in the background and it’s well worth the hunt. There’s one better vantage point that we didn’t go to because we couldn’t find parking, and we went in the low season! You’ve got to cross the bridge, go through a tunnel, drive up a mountain, and then try not to get hit by a car, good luck!

Santa Rosa

We decided to stay in one central place for the whole weekend and it couldn’t have worked out better! We went with Airbnb and booked 3 nights at Orchard Street with Sarena, sometimes you just can’t beat the experience of staying with a local, she gave us a lot of great suggestions for where to go. We weren’t as adventurous as we wanted to be with the restaurants, but long lines dictated that we had to skip a couple of places. We only ever ate breakfast and dinner in Santa Rosa, but for breakfast, our hands down pick was The Parish Cafe, a New Orleans inspired restaurant that checked the need for a hearty breakfast and delicious Beignets. For dinner, we had heard good things about the Russian River Brewing Company, but their line sent us instead to Beer Baron Bar & Kitchen. We really had no complaints, the food was good and they had a great choice of beer and wine. All of these restaurants are in a neat little main street style area on 4th street.

The Wineries

Three days in the valley meant we could really branch out and see some different areas, but it wasn’t enough time to cover the over 400 wineries in Napa Valley. We started with breakfast at the Model Bakery, a cozy little place on the main drag in St. Helena. Our travelling companions on this trip had already scoped out some of the big names in the area, Robert Mondavi, Charles Krug, and Beringer. We also squeezed in a quick trip to Turnbull and ended the day at Louis M. Martini. We did the Signature Tasting and Tour at Robert Mondavi and it was a great view into the wine making process from vine to glass. The estate itself sits at the base of a series of rolling hills with picturesque surroundings. The tasting offered us several glasses of the kinds of wines that don’t often make it to us in the Midwest. We tried to have lunch at Gott’s Roadside, which came highly recommended, but the long line instead sent us to the Pizzeria Tra Vigne.

Day two took us north to Landmark, Kendall-Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola, and Simi with dinner at KINsmoke BBQ. The Coppola estate was amazing and is probably a happening place to be at in the summer with their pool, but our favorite experience was probably at Simi with their fun staff and excellent wines. The garden area at Kendall-Jackson is well worth the walk, and don’t miss the furry feet chicken towards the back.

On day three we left our travel companions and branched out on our own, we started our day at Rodney Strong where we tried some amazing wines and nearly joined their wine club. Our second stop was a neat place we discovered on TripAdvisor, the Locals Tasting Room in Geyserville. This place is run by 10 local wineries with smaller operations and the tasting room allows you to taste every wine they have, for free! This was probably our favorite stop of the day with a couple of the winery owners running the bar that day.

This was our final day in the region, so our trip took us south towards the bay area, we stopped at Chateau Montelena Winery, which sits on a gorgeous estate with wine prices to match, and then we stopped in Yountville to visit the Girard Tasting Room (possibly distant relatives). Yountville is a pleasant little area off of the highway with restaurants and tasting rooms all along the main road through town.

We will certainly be back to this area, plenty more to see, eat, and drink. We came out here just before the season really picks up, I can’t imagine what it would be like during peak season, the roads and venues don’t really seem built for the influx of people, guess we’ll have to see next time!