Sonoma Wine Country

Saturday we spent the day in Sonoma wine country.  It was a beautiful day, and we had a blast.

Here was our day in Healdsburg, in photos.

Dry Creek Valley

La Crema was first on our list, and we visited their tasting room off the charming Healdsburg Square.  Their chardonnay and pinot noir made from grapes of Arroyo Seco in Monterey County were surprisingly our favorites!

The nice people at La Crema sent us next door to Murphy-Goode's tasting room, and we really enjoyed getting to know Bill, the British guy pouring for us.  Over enjoyable conversation, he opened a couple extra bottles to let us compare different styles (for example, old vine zinfandel, Snake Eyes--which turned out to be my favorite, compared to young vine, Liar's Dice), and he also let us try a wine that hadn't yet been released (All In, below).  This stop was one of the day's highlights, despite the fact that I lost to our server at the game Liar's Dice.

Next we headed north along Dry Creek Road, where many of the wineries are nestled among large estates.

Truett-Hurst was our favorite stop of the day.  The winery is located right on the Dry Creek, and the staff encourages guests to picnic in the red adirondack chairs down by the creek.

 

We made new friends, enjoyed barbecued tri-tip and sausages paired with the wines, and relaxed along the Dry Creek in the warm afternoon sun.

Truett-Hurst's grounds are filled with flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetable gardens.

Dry Creek is not actually dry this time of year...

We ended our time in Healdsburg at Kokomo's tasting room, which we had visited two years prior, during our anniversary trip.  The wines were as good as we had remembered, and the small tasting room was set on beautiful grounds with grapes and flowers you could pick.

We arrived back home after such a wonderful day, and now we have some new favorite Healdsburg wineries to tour again with our next visitors.

And I don't have any pictures from the rest of the evening, but my sister surprised me by showing up at our place in time for hors d'oeuvres and dinner out with friends!  It was the perfect ending to a fantastic day.