
10/08/2025
Sonoma Valley Wine Country: Explore Premium California Wines
While Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley are next-door neighbors in the heart of premium California wine country, a visit and wine tasting tour shows contrasting styles, experiences and wines to enjoy.
Napa wineries are easily accessible. From the south to the north most of the wineries are located on a grid bordered by Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail. Your visit to Sonoma Valley is more of an adventure requiring the use of Google Maps, and better yet, a good old-fashioned printed Sonoma Valley winery map. For Robin’s annual December birthday vacation, we dove into the “adventure” of a visit to Sonoma Valley.
Sonoma Valley is much more laid back than Napa Valley—$1,000/night rooms and acres of resort facilities are not part of the culture. For me, that’s a good thing. Michelin star or wannabe star restaurants and $400 dinners for two are for Napa, not Sonoma.
The advantage of a late December visit is less traffic and reduced crowds at the wineries. These days it is always best to schedule appointments for everything from a tasting to a complete wine and food pairing at some wineries. With the generous help of Amy Patrick at Sonoma County Vintners, we scheduled visits to wineries in the Russian River Valley all the way up north to the Alexander Valley, enjoying beautiful road trips from Sonoma to Healdsburg to Santa Rosa. We visited the heart of their Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel country.
The goal of our trip was to enjoy great wine, hence no restaurant reviews. On the other hand, our wine and food pairings were the most memorable highlight of our trip. Maybe next time we’ll visit Paso Robles wine country for more great wine, lots of driving and exploring. Cheers!!