Ok, let me preface this article with two things. 1. I love wine. 2. I’m not a big drinker. Maybe those two statements don’t really make sense to you but for me, drinking a glass of wine is more about the experience than it is about consuming alcohol. I love that wine tells a story. So, when my husband and I planned a trip to Sonoma County for early November, it didn’t involve an itinerary of a bus tour or a driver to keep us hopping from tasting room to tasting room. We wanted to really get to know Sonoma and Napa—the people, the landscape and the flavors—and we discovered it’s so much more than an overgrown wine cellar. If you have a joie de vivre and a smidge of Jack Kerouac in your veins, keep reading for a Northern California vacation you will always remember.
Where to Stay
For a little Romance and Relaxation
There are countless luxury resorts, bed and breakfasts, hotels and inns in the area with exceptional reviews. But if you are looking for something special, book a room at the Kenwood Inn and Spa in Kenwood, CA. A member of Four Sisters Inns, its Tuscan architecture, lush gardens and elegant courtyards are a luxurious, romantic and soothing escape from the everyday. Almost everyone we met who heard we were staying there, commented on how special the inn has been for decades. With final touches of their recent renovation finished in 2023, it blends the modern luxury of a top-rated hotel with the charm and intimacy of a B&B. Each morning, you can enjoy their curated and complimentary breakfast menu. Almost nightly, the inn hosts local wineries for complimentary tastings; and coffee, tea and hot chocolate are available round-the-clock in the courtyard. November felt cool (think October weather in the Northeast) but not so cool that guests couldn’t enjoy the steaming swimming pool, which was kept at 85 degrees, or the warming pool, which is essentially a smaller wading pool kept at hot tub temperatures. Year-round, you can up your experience by renting a poolside cabana stocked with Castenada rosé from Three Sticks, and a charcuterie plate. The rooms have cozy gas fireplaces so in colder months you can snuggle up in front of the fire and order room service (a menu of small plate options) any time of day, or have your wine country-inspired small plates delivered to you anywhere on site. Two of the courtyards have fire pits and outdoor fireplaces to enjoy. Treatments at the spa are for guests only, so a customized couples massage or Valley of the Moon massage will feel like it’s just for you. Making the Kenwood your home base affords you beautiful views of rolling hillsides in every direction and gives you a central launch point for exploring Sonoma and Napa valleys.
A Gathering Place
If you are traveling with friends or family, the Meritage Resort, right off the highway in Napa, is a fun and convenient weekend stop; it has its own working vineyard right on the property for your viewing (and strolling) pleasure, and lots of amenities on site. With a recent multi-year, $25-million renovation now complete, it’s really upped the luxe factor and amped up amenities. The resort has its own bowling alley and lounge open to guests, and two pools (a family pool and an adults only pool). Spa Terra, built into a cave in the hillside, is a soothing escape with an extensive menu of massage and body treatments, facials, guided meditations and wellness programs. After a treatment, enjoy the private saunas. After our personalized couples massage, we took a quick peek into their romantic event space built into the cave, where the hotel was setting up for one of the many weddings the resort hosts annually.
The Meritage has two restaurants on site: Olive and Hay, a farm-to-table dining experience featuring locally sourced ingredients, and Ember, a sexy candlelit steakhouse featuring dry-aged beef, fresh fish and produce sourced from local farms, provide an array of dining options. Before dinner, we popped into Sora, the resort’s brand-new tasting room dedicated to all things bubbly and tried a creative flight of sparkling California champagnes—something the region is known for.
What to Do
The scenery is incredibly diverse as you drive Napa and Sonoma.
The Coast
Not far from San Francisco, Rodeo Beach is set in a calm lagoon between the cliffs where surfers can enjoy an easy ride in the Pacific. The unique and colorful pebbled sand includes bits of jade and black agate. Parking is free and you can explore hiking trails that take you up the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. As you walk the trails, take in the delicious smells of the native plants and read the self-guided tour about the park. Fort Cronkhite, the former World War II military post, overlooks the beach and has been preserved.
We had heard from a local that at Point Reyes Elk Reserve you can hike the rolling hills along the coast and are almost guaranteed to catch sightings of Elk along the way. But we had lots on our bucket list, and we heard the hike is roughly 10 miles. Instead, we took a scenic drive out to the Pacific coast and then looped back into Healdsburg. On our way west, we drove through Sebastopol, stopping in Sebastopol Community Market where we picked up freshly made gourmet sandwiches to enjoy by the coastline. We reached the coast at Bodega Bay and from there meandered up the coastline through Sonoma Coast State Park. Countless pull-offs allow you to stop and take in the breathtaking views, so we ate our lunch cliffside high above Goat Rock Beach and the rocky Pacific coast.
The Woods
I didn’t want to leave California without seeing a sequoia so our next adventure took us about an hour from our inn to Armstrong Woods, one of the few places you can take in the beauty of coast redwoods, the tallest living thing on our planet. These trees grow roughly 10 to 20 feet wide at the base and more than 300 feet tall. Colonel Armstrong, the forest’s tallest tree, is approximately 1,400 years old. The forest is considered a temperate rainforest, as the trees need wet and mild weather to survive. The easy walk through the woods felt meditative and restorative. The forest undergrowth is just as beautiful as the towering trees, with patches of clover and fern, and massive fallen stumps with burled wood. There are opportunities to picnic among the trees if you like. Dress warm, because the forest is much cooler than the rest of the area.
The Geyser
On the last day of our vacation, we took a scenic drive through the mountains to the small town of Calistoga. The mountain terrain was dotted with horse ranches. We couldn’t help but stop for a quick peek at the Petrified Forest—it’s a 30-minute walk through fossilized redwoods and the only petrified woods in California. But our raison d’etre was the opportunity to visit California’s Old Faithful, one of only three predictable geysers in the world. While it isn’t as large as its cousin in Yellowstone, it’s still awe-inspiring to watch steam and boiling water shooting out of the ground at roughly 130 degrees. Unlike Yellowstone, this geyser has also proven itself a predictor of earthquakes!
The view from the park includes Mount Saint Helena (which is 30 minutes from the park and offers lots of hiking opportunities), and the Napa Valley Palisades (located in Robert Lewis Stevenson State Park, not far from Old Faithful). Eruptions of the geyser happen roughly every 50 minutes so visitors typically get to watch it more than once. Bring a picnic or a bottle of wine and in between you can play some bocce ball or relax at one of many lounge and picnic areas. If you bring the kids, they’ll love getting an up-close look at the alpaca and goat farm on the grounds.
The Vineyards
We rode into Santa Rosa and sat down for a tasting at Harvest Moon Estate & Winery with winemaker Randy Pitts, who made a career shift after college to come home and make wine from the family’s grapes, which they had been cultivating since 1976. The winery makes a variety of still and sparkling wines, but considers itself among the best for bubbly. We wanted to take a bottle of his 2016 sparkling pinot noir home for Thanksgiving because its dark ruby flavor felt so festive and reminded us of cranberries, but the 2020 zinfandel rosé, made from the vines planted on his family’s estate in 1995, was one of our favorites, too.
After our hike through Armstrong Woods, we stopped at nearby Korbel winery in Guerneville. Famous for their champagne, they’ve been the stuff of holiday commercials since my childhood, but we were surprised to learn they carry a line of stills, too. They offer tastings and tours, but we opted for ordering a sandwich and a cocktail at their gourmet deli and finding a seat on the patio (heated lamps and fire pits included) where you can take in the vineyards and the hills of pine trees beyond. That deli was one of the best decisions we made all day.
I had heard that Dutton-Goldfield made some of the best pinot noir in the region, so we booked a holiday tasting at their tasting room to find out if it was true. Our sommelier Barbara regaled us with stories about partners Steve Dutton and Dan Goldfield while we tried incredible whites and reds and decided the reviews were right. Dutton, a fifth-generation farmer, and Goldfield, a Boston transplant who left a future in chemistry to spend more time outside and make wine, each bring their own unique skill sets and energy to the brand. We learned about how the different local vineyards they source from, create a range of flavors in each of their wines due to their varied environments: from bright and fruity to rich and earthy. I’m not usually a fan of chardonnay, but we really enjoyed the Devil’s Gulch chardonnay, a full-bodied white with hints of pear and fig; and the splash of their bright and floral gewurztraminer would be worth a wine club membership all by itself. Our favorite pinots were the bright and fruit Fox Den and the deep and rich Redwood Ridge. The spicy and aromatic Devil’s Gulch pinot had me yearning for cheese, so she brought us a sample of some delicate locally made cheese from Point Reyes and locally made salami from Journeyman Meat Co. in Healdsburg that was the perfect pairing.
In the heart of Sonoma Valley (minutes from the Kenwood Inn), you’ll find St. Francis Winery and Kunde Family Winery. At St. Francis we chose two glasses of wine, which we took on a self-guided walking tour of the vineyard. It was so beautiful walking through the rows of vines at sunset and a nice way to get to know the vineyard and enjoy the wine in a very 4K way! Next, we had the rare opportunity to drink in a bit of history (literally!) when we tried the zinfandel from Kunde’s century vines. Kunde Family Winery, first planted in 1879, is one of the few wineries that was able to operate continually through the prohibition era during the early 20th century (because they provided sacramental wine to the Catholic Church). Five generations later, they are still a family run farm producing award-winning and sustainable wines. If you want a reason to visit during the busy season, Kunde offers a tour of their cave and vineyards, including a mountaintop tasting during which you can take in the landscape of their roughly 900 acres of vines!
The Wine Train
The quickest way to see Napa Valley in a day is to take the Napa Valley Wine Train for a multi-course lunch and tour. There are various levels to this experience, from a Legacy experience, including a four-course meal and two seated tastings at wineries in St. Helena, to an elegant afternoon tea, including desserts and fine teas. All experiences include a glass of champagne upon arrival. We opted for their express lunch: a three-course meal during your three-hour train ride through Napa Valley. Our lively tour guide was a font of information with fun stories about how the region made a name for itself to become a world-class wine destination. The dining cars are a page out of history but rather than feeling like stodgy museums time forgot, they are elegant, well-preserved and make you feel like you’ve traveled back in time to an era when train travel was refined and world-class. We were pleasantly surprised with the gourmet three-course menu. We chose the butternut squash risotto and the salmon over a bed of lentils, and ordered a Napa-made sauvignon blanc and an albarino blend from Acampo, CA. When we got back to the station, we explored Oxbow Public Market (where local gourmet purveyors sell their wares), and First Street, the “Rodeo Drive” of Napa for shopping.
Shopping and Dining
Minutes from Kenwood Inn & Spa, Palooza Brewery & Gastropub is a casual bar with an extensive beer menu and comfort food. Try one of their wood fired pizzas, like the prosciutto and arugula with white truffle oil and mushrooms, or the classic margherita. Salt & Stone, also down the street in Kenwood, calls itself a gathering place, and they aren’t kidding. Make a reservation because despite the expansive patio, two dining rooms and a porch with heat lamps, tables are hard to come by on the fly. The surf and turf menu includes fresh oysters, classic French onion soup and local blackened snapper.
If you are looking for a casual spot with a global perspective, and vegan and vegetarian options, Santa Rosa’s East West Restaurant is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. The staff here is warm and welcoming, and the food is inventive with health-conscious ingredients. Low-cholesterol turkey burgers won’t leave you feeling short-changed and the salads have a variety of dressings with even oil-free and vegan options that don’t skimp on flavor.
The drive to Healdsburg took us through dry grassy pastures of cattle farms and rolling hills of vineyards, then through tiny artsy villages filled with galleries and studios among the pines in the Russian River Valley. When we reached Healdsburg, we got a little taste of home. The picture-perfect little town full of luxurious shops, art galleries, tasting rooms and fine dining spots isn’t far from our own Fairfield County communities—the difference being the giant redwoods in the town square. Kenwood’s sister property, Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza, is a lovely in-town alternative if you prefer walking to shops and dining, over a country setting. Before heading to Healdsburg, book a three-course dinner at Dry Creek Kitchen. The beautiful indoor/outdoor dining space draped in greenery is must-try culinary experience. If you want to avoid the crowds of the tasting rooms on a busy night, Arandas is a sexy and modern Mexican bar and restaurant inside Hotel Les Mars. The striking marbled bar is a fun spot to pull up and order tapas and a local wine. For a fun and low-key night out, Lo and Behold Bar and Kitchen offers a globally inspired menu and has an extensive bar and creative cocktail menu.
Downtown Calistoga is a quaint main street with Western-style buildings like a page from an old movie, filled with boutiques, art galleries, restaurants, and the fun, newly renovated Dr. Wilkinson’s Backyard Resort and Mineral Springs, a modern-retro hotel and spa with a wellness focus. The Calistoga Inn, Restaurant and Brewery is a fun place to gather on the outdoor patio under the string lights or sit in the recently remodeled dining room. The restaurant holds lots of special events for holidays, so check their website before you go.
In downtown Sonoma, you can stroll the square, shop the local boutiques and choose from a variety of exceptional restaurants. LaSalette is tucked at the end of a quiet courtyard, but tables filled up quickly the night we dined there. From their Portuguese menu, we selected the fisherman’s stew and the short ribs. Both reflected the restaurant’s dedication to authentic flavors using fresh, local and seasonal ingredients. A delightful addition were the complimentary tastings from the starter menu and champagne to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Plan ahead, if you want to dine at The Girl and The Fig. The French-inspired bistro is so popular that tables tend to book up early.
