Wine Country…..Sonoma & Napa Valley

During our girl’s trip to Cancun, we unanimously decided that our next vacay would be to head west to Wine Country. Needless to say, as soon as I got back home from Mexico, the process of planning this trip was in full effect. We couldn’t decide if we should visit Napa or Sonoma, so we decided to do both! Once again, I called Karlene to facilitate our next excursion and she did not disappoint.

We flew into San Francisco, jumped into our rental cars and headed to Sonoma. A couple of the ladies had never been to IN and OUT Burger, so we couldn’t resist making that our first stop before crossing the Golden Gate Bridge into Wine Country. It took us about 1 ½ hours to drive from San Francisco to Sonoma. Driving up to The Lodge at Sonoma Renaissance Resort & Spa, it didn’t have the grandeur that we’d expected. Boy, was that misleading because this place was freaking gorgeous!

It was early evening by the time we checked into our rooms and we were really starting to feel the time change. However, that didn’t stop this crew from looking for some vittles. We ate at a little spot called The Red Grape. Most of the ladies had pizza, but I opted for the quinoa burger and truffle onion rings. It was simply delicious.

After a good night’s sleep, we started our day with breakfast at the adjoining restaurant to our hotel, The Carneros Bistro. We ended up eating here every morning for breakfast during our stay. I was able to sample several items from the menu like the blueberry pancakes and egg white omelet and everything was so good.

We decided to venture out to Napa Valley first and then spend our last day in Sonoma. The total drive time from Sonoma to Napa was about an hour. Our first winery was Sterling Vineyards. We purchased the Sterling Silver Experience and proceeded to the Gondola for the aerial tram ride, with a breathtaking view of the vineyard, up to the winery. We were greeted with a glass of wine and then we toured the winery at our leisure. It was a start to a great day!

Our next stop was Castello Di Amorosa. This winery looked like a castle and the grounds were so beautiful that we never made it inside. We took this opportunity to take a lot of pictures before we headed off to our last winery, V. Sattui. This winery was the best because it had food everywhere and we were starving! We had our choice of either barbeque, a mozzarella bar, wood-fired pizzas, and inside was a full deli. We ate light since we made dinner reservations at The Depot Hotel Restaurant. On our way back to Sonoma we stopped at this cute little Soap Store and purchased some smell good!

Visiting Napa Valley was a great experience but we were equally excited to see what Sonoma had to offer. We only had time to visit two wineries, Ledson and Benzinger. I really enjoyed Benzinger because I learned so much on the process of wine making and the ride on the trolley pulled by the tractor wasn’t too bad either! We got back to our hotel just in time to freshen up for dinner at The El Dorado Kitchen. I can’t say enough about how great the food was everywhere we went, but I still dream about the truffle fries at El Dorado Kitchen. I could eat them every day of my life!

Now that our bellies were full, some of the ladies were catching the red eye back to the east coast and the rest of us sat by the fireplace in the lounge and simply had the best grown woman conversation that any girl could ask for! The rest of us left the next morning and once again, even though it was hard to depart one another again, we find joy in knowing that it’s only for a short time because another fabulous trip is just around the corner! Until next time, please enjoy the pictures of my gorgeous friends and know that they are just as beautiful on the inside!