{"id":1231,"date":"2019-03-30T18:44:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T18:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2019-03-30T19:12:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T19:12:00","slug":"planning-your-sonoma-county-vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1231","title":{"rendered":"Planning Your Sonoma County Vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last month\u2019s issue of <em>Power Tasting<\/em> contained an article on planning for a trip to Napa Valley.\u00a0 We owe the same to the other half of Napa\/Noma, Sonoma County.\u00a0 Many aspects of the planning are the same but there are some very distinct differences as well.\u00a0 For one thing, Sonoma County is a lot more relaxed than Napa Valley.\u00a0 For another, Sonoma\u2019s Wine Country is quite a lot bigger than Napa Valley\u2019s, so there\u2019s more travelling to do if you want to see \u2013 and taste \u2013 it all.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Figure out what you want to taste.<\/strong> Different AVAs of Sonoma Wine Country are associated with different grapes.\u00a0 Russian River is renowned for its Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays (although Chardonnay is grown just about everywhere).\u00a0 Alexander Valley is known for Cabernet Sauvignon.\u00a0 Dry Creek Valley is famous for its Zinfandels.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find some of everything everywhere and some other AVAs make a little of everything, but you really ought to focus your tasting on the local specialties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alexander1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1232 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alexander1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"644\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alexander1-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alexander1-768x432.jpg 768w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/alexander1.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 644px) 100vw, 644px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Alexander Valley.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of The Wine Country.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Avoid a lot of driving.<\/strong> You will need at least a day to go wine tasting in any one region (and of course you won\u2019t be able to taste everything in a day), so don\u2019t plan to do a little bit in the Sonoma side of Carneros in the morning and then Dry Creek after lunch.\u00a0 The main route in Sonoma County is Route 101 and even at highway speeds, it\u2019s an hour\u2019s drive between those two ends of Sonoma\u2019s Wine Country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/russian_river1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1233\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/russian_river1-300x167.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/russian_river1-300x167.png 300w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/russian_river1-768x427.png 768w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/russian_river1-1024x569.png 1024w, http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/russian_river1.png 1076w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Traveling through Russian River. Photo courtesy of Ride with GPS.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>But enjoy the drive.<\/strong> Unlike Napa Valley, which is laid out in fairly straight lines, Sonoma County\u2019s Wine Country is full of rustic, windy roads many of which are especially beautiful.\u00a0 Take some time to open your eyes and look around.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Choose a hotel that\u2019s close to where you want to taste wine.<\/strong> The principal towns with large hotels are Sonoma to the south, Santa Rosa in the middle and Healdsburg up north.\u00a0 Each has a mix of chain hotels, inns, resorts and bed-and-breakfasts.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably a good idea to figure out where you want to taste, then ask Google how long it would take to get there from each town.\u00a0 That should make it easier to narrow your hotel search.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Think about food, too.<\/strong> For the most part, Sonoma County restaurants are more casual than their counterparts in Napa Valley.\u00a0 Healdsburg has a few rather elegant eateries (Charlie Palmer\u2019s Dry Creek Kitchen and Valette) but you\u2019ll usually find both the food and the diners to be easy-going in the rest of the county.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a put-down; there are lots of places to eat with great food.\u00a0 Like anywhere else, reservations are a good idea on weekend evenings in warm weather, but in general you won\u2019t need them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Enjoy lunch, too.<\/strong> If you\u2019re going to be sipping wine all day, you\u2019d better eat.\u00a0 There are iconic delis (the <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=69\">Jimtown Store<\/a> in Alexander Valley, the <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=938\">Dry Creek General Store<\/a>, the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg).\u00a0 Many wineries in Sonoma County have picnic facilities, unlike those in Napa Valley.\u00a0 And having a bite on the town squares in <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=526\">Healdsburg<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1239\">Sonoma<\/a>, followed by a casual stroll, should be a part of your vacation plans, too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month\u2019s issue of Power Tasting contained an article on planning for a trip to Napa Valley.\u00a0 We owe the same to the other half of Napa\/Noma, Sonoma County.\u00a0 Many aspects of the planning are the same but there are some very distinct differences as well.\u00a0 For one thing, Sonoma County is a lot more &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1231\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Planning Your Sonoma County Vacation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1245,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}