Custom Tour of California Wine Country

In October 2007, we took an unforgettable two week tour of the Central California Coast, Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, Russian River Valley and San Francisco. We toured a lot of wineries, drank a lot of great wine, stayed at some fantastic hotels and resorts, and ate some of the best meals we've ever experienced.

Setting up a trip like this is not easy. It involved more research that I had ever done before for a trip. Locating the best / most interesting wineries, finding memorable places to stay, and getting reservations at the best restaurants the area had to offer took a lot of planning, but it was all well worth the effort in the end.

Central California Coast

Our trip began at Half Moon Bay. Our resort there, the Ritz Carlton, was excellemt.  We had booked a Firepit Room, with a Pacific Ocean view. each day they would deliver a bottle of wine and a "Smores" kit for fireside happy hour.

We used the Ritz as our base of operations for two day-long trips - one to Big Sur and the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, and one to Carmel, Pebble Beach and Monterey. Since both trips were to the south of  Half Moon Bay, we traveled the same roads multiple times. The convenience of not having to pack and unpack made up for the time lost in driving though.

The Hearst Castle is often compared to the Biltmore House, as two of America's most spectacular estates.   In a nutshell, I'll give the Biltmore House the edge on interior spaces, and call the categories of siting and exterior beauty as draws.

Big Sur, Carmel, Pebble Beach and Monterey were all spectacular.  We had perfect weather for these destinations. If you visit, be sure to take the 17-mile Drive at Pebble Beach. For some great photos of this portion of our trip, including the Hearst Castle, see the California Wine Country web site.

Napa Valley

With so many outstanding choices of hotels and resorts available throughout Napa Valley, I am not sure it is possible to really make a bad choice.  We couldn't have been more pleased with ours though - the Carneros Inn. The resort features individual cottages, each with luxurious baths, well appointed baths, and a private exterior deck.  Their restaurants - Farm (below) and the more casual Boon Fly Cafe were excellent.

In Napa we visited the wineries at Hess Collection, Artesa, Domaine Carneros, Clos Pegase, Schramsberg, Sterling, Rubicon Estate, Beringer, Joseph Phelps, and Robert Mondave

Sonoma Valley

Our base of operations in Sonoma Valley was the Hotel Healdsburg, in the town of Healdsburg.  It was a beautiful hotel - modern but very much compatible with the scale and fabric of the city. The city of Healdsburg was a pleasant surprise for us - a nice example of a small town grown into a sophisticated, fun city.

Sonoma Valley in general is a little less polished, perhaps a little more genuine than Napa Valley. It is hard to out-shine its "big sister" Napa - its wineries are not as elaborate, its luxury resorts not as numerous - but we enjoyed its distinctive feel.

We visited nine wineries over our three days in Sonoma - Buena Vista, Sebastiani, Gundlach Bundschu, Ferrari-Carano, Michel-Schlumberger, J, St. Francis, Geyser Peak and Benziger.

After our stay in Sonoma Valley we drove to the Pacific coast via Russian River Valley. We visited the Korbel winery and the Armstrong Redwoods State Park along the way. The views from Jenner, at the junction with the Pacific Coast Highway were breath-taking, and the restored Russian fort - Fort Ross, was an unexpected highlight of the trip.

Although we've visited San Francisco many times in the past, we always seem able to find things we haven't done before, and sights we've never seen before. The highlight this visit was our tour of Alcatraz Island. We never imagined it would be as interesting as it turned out to be. Alcatraz also has its scenic points. I was amazed to actually get some good photographs there.

We dined at several great restaurnants on past trips, including Gary Danko, Seasons at the Four Seasons and Michael Mina. On this trip we dined at Fleur de Lys, but preferred our dinner at the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton. The ambience was great, and the service was very attentive.

Our hotel was the St. Regis - a great choice.  It was well situated, next door to the San Franciso Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), with beautiful rooms and a very accommodating staff.