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Napa & Sonoma Wine Country
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The drive from San Francisco to Wine country took us through Marin County, a nice area of hills and pine forests were we stopped to have lunch and watch the rain clouds roll in (first time in California since we have arrived).
All accommodation in Napa seems to be boutique hotels at the vineyards, but being on the motel budget we decided to stay a bit further North of Napa and Sonoma in a city called Santa Rosa. The plan of action was to arrive there, book a tour of the vineyards for the next day and try and visit the Renwood vineyard (one of favourites for the red Zin) the day after - well that was the plan...
On arriving we asked the motel reception girl/monster if there were any hop on - hop off wine tours for the area. She gave us a leaflet which seemed to meet our requirements perfectly and was only $20 each. Problem was, after eventually getting the monster to turn our motel room phone on, I rang the number and it was answered by an equestrian centre, who had no idea about wine tours. Not to be dissuaded we headed to the visitors centre to find out more info, but they had no tours and could only recommend a personal driver at $60 an hour or drive yourself "you only drink a small amount at each one" - don't think so. The whole thing didn't seem to be geared towards tourists and was all a bit cliquey if you ask me, no tours and boutiquey accommodations, give me Stellenbosch any day off the week, $30 for a full days personal tour and a good honest piss up rather than this taste and spit nonsense.
So time for a new plan of action then !! Now being an official designated driver I offered to drive round all the vineyards on our own little wine tour, but then we realized the day after next was thanksgiving so Renwood wouldn't be open. Final plan then was to drive to Renwood and back via a couple of vineyards so at least we would go to the vineyard we actually wanted too.
Word of warning - don't try and drive anywhere the day before Thanksgiving, it was absolute gridlock. In 5 hours we managed to do an 85 mile round trip having turned round at the halfway point realizing we weren't going to get to the vineyard at a decent enough hour. It didn't help that it was also pissing it down and in the end we were a more than a little bit pissed off - what a total waste of time, the wheels seemed to be coming off the road trip !!!
To drown our sorrows we didn't have any wine, but a kebab and the largest piece of apple pie with ice cream instead, food can always make things seem better. In retrospect I think if you're going to do Napa, fork out for the boutique hotel at a vineyard who does multiple tastings, then you don't have to worry about transport and you're in the wine cliché frame of mind. Otherwise don't bother as transportation isn't geared towards tourists and the place itself is quite scummy, well Santa Rosa was anyway, let's get out of here and get to Yosemite.
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