Sonoma, California
Hi friends. I recently went to Sonoma, and here are some of my recommendations. We stayed in the sleepy town of Glen Ellen at a cozy little farmhouse (and working winery!) called Beltane Ranch. We basically used Beltane Ranch as the base and then visited wineries within a 15-20 minute radius, in Glen Ellen and nearby Kenwood. We chose Sonoma because unlike nearby Napa — where the wineries are all clustered together — the wineries in Sonoma are a bit more spread out and the whole vibe is more relaxed.
WHERE TO STAY
Beltane Ranch: This place is very cute. You know this because tons of white people have weddings there. From their site: Historic Beltane Ranch is a vineyard, winery, garden, orchard and landmarked 1892 Sonoma Valley Bed & Breakfast Inn Farm Stay. There you go. There are only six rooms, and I highly recommend one of the rooms on the top floor, which looks out over the fields and gardens. It’s very much a true bed & breakfast (they cook up breakfast for you in the farmhouse kitchen) and the decor is definitely “grandma-rustic-Pinterest-chic” so if you typically prefer to stay in modern, sleek hotels this place may not be for you. I chose it because it was a bit different than the aforementioned sleek hotels I usually go for and it was interesting learning about the history of the place, being able to drink a bottle of wine made on the ranch in the room, etc etc. Plus, most crucially, the bathrooms are entirely renovated and extremely modern (if they weren’t this would have been a make-or-break factor). It was so nice to sit out on the porch in front of the garden and just hang out, and take a walk around the grounds. Hella romantic. Here’s a post of two adorable women getting married at Beltane Ranch.
MacArthur Place: We — and by “we” I mean moi, since when it comes to deciding where my boyfriend and I stay on trips I operate what I like to call “a benevolent dictatorship” — were deciding between Beltane and MacArthur — a historic six-acre estate in Sonoma town proper that’s been entirely renovated. We ultimately went for Beltane, but we did go for drinks at MacArthur’s bar and we were so impressed by the property and the quality of food & drink. The rooms are super sleek and it has more of an actual boutique hotel vibe - intimate lounge, airy high-ceilinged all-day dining restaurant, the works. Will definitely stay there next time and splash out on a suite with a fireplace for some super special occasion — like Mercury going into retrograde, my kitten learning how to use a closed litter box, etc. etc.
Beltane Ranch
WHERE TO DRINK
Suffice to say that you should love drinking if you’re going to go to Sonoma for a weekend because that’s the main thing to do there. I mapped out a few wineries but I didn’t have the foresight to make any reservations, so we just went to ones that take walk-ins. This is also a nice little guide to the area.
EH — Imagery Estate Winery: We only went here because Benzinger Family Winery was closed for a private event. This is the sister winery to Bezinger, and I think they’re trying to position themselves as the…younger, hipper, artsier sibling to Benzinger? I don’t know. It was fine, pretty small. I liked how the tasting counters are in the middle of the room vs. counters flanking the sides. I don’t remember any of the wine. The bottle designs are cool though. Don’t really think it’s worth a visit on your first few trips out.
GO — Valley of the Moon Winery: This was the first winery we hit and we bought the bulk of our take-home bottles from here. It’s not the most impressive tasting room, but it felt warm and cozy and the people pouring the tastings were ultra-friendly. Also when we went it they were aggressively pushing the Christmas cheer on us — as in, there was a full-on caroling group and an actual Santa and Ms. Claus. I presume that this isn’t marketed for kids, since, like — it’s a winery — so I can only assume that they wanted to have us, adults, pose with Santa. (Ed note: We did not end up posing with Santa). But! I did take home a few bottles of Chardonnay to gift to people since the labels are pretty, the bottles are around 25-30 USD and Valley of the Moon is just such a dope name.
GO — Kunde Family Winery: This was by far our favorite winery in both atmosphere and the actual wine — the tasting room has soaring, enormously high-ceilings. We had a very informative representative doing the tasting for us and she snuck us a few extra sips of some very, very nice red from their more expensive range of wines. I don’t know shit about wines but even I knew it was good; she let us have a taste of this zinfandel made from grapes grown on century-old vines (there is apparently a strict certification on which vineyards are allowed to market themselves as having “old” vines) and it was the best sip of the trip. We actually ended up buying a bottle over 50 USD, which is really telling you something since I really don’t usually believe in spending more than 20 bucks on wine (okay fine, more like 10 bucks). If it hadn’t been raining, we could have hiked to the top of the mountain and seen the view. They also have a cave tasting which sounds fun and something I’d definitely reserve next time. And! they offer something called “Estate & Dog Hikes” which if I understand correctly, you bring your dog and stroll through the vineyards while getting a tour and doing a tasting. I would definitely borrow someone’s dog for this.
SKIP — Landmark Vineyards: This was recommended to us by someone at another winery and it was really underwhelming. Supposedly it’s known for having ideal grounds for picnicking and a picnic package all set up (this ended up being just a small fridge filled with all kind of random plastic-wrapped bundles of meat and cheese) — but it was raining so all of this obviously was not impressive to me. There’s a bocce ball court, but you didn’t come here for that. The wine was mediocre (Chardonnays, bleh - and Pinots) and the girl helping us just seemed massively uninterested in selling us this wine. Also important to note that we were basically the only people there. Skip this one.
EH — St. Francis Winery & Vineyards: This winery is famous for their food-and-wine package which apparently is the highest rated restaurant on OpenTable in the country (not that it really means anything, lol). It’s alright - faux-Mission style and the decor is kind of — dusty. But the man who poured our tasting made it extremely fun and informative (my boyfriend was taking notes while I was conning the nice old man into giving me extra off-menu tastings of rose). But he kept also telling us that the wine was available at “your local Safeway”, which wasn’t really convincing us to buy any bottles.
MacArthur Place