Wandering south to California

This is the first installment in Winery Wanderings’ California adventure. Remember to subscribe at the bottom of our home page to get all our updates and adventures!

When we plan a trip we usually have a few things scheduled, while many others just happen.  This trip to California was no exception. We knew we had a couple of firm plans for Tuesday . For Monday, our first day, we only knew where we might start. We had great accommodations at a World Mark resort in Windsor, California. After checking in and getting the mini sales pitch, we ventured into downtown Windsor. We found a really cool lunch place called KC’s American Kitchen right on the town square. We shared a great lunch and poured over winery maps and guides. We also asked for some advice from our server and even some nearby diners. They all pointed us to a local stop just a block away. Turns out we were already planning to visit this urban tasting room.  It was the same spot that was  recommended by the Sonoma Wine Passport folks.  These Wine Passports really helped us find and try places we might not have visited otherwise.

This first stop was a really cute downtown tasting room called Tasting Room on the Green. Our host for the day was Dan Russell. This tasting room was the tasting home for two small wineries,  Deux Amis Winery and Mutt Lynch Winery. Both proved to be very good. We spent well over an hour chatting with Dan about where we should go, what we were trying to do with our blog, and great recommendations for local restaurants. Dan served not only as our first host, but as our virtual tour guide for the trip that was just starting. We entered as  customers and left as  friends.

Several people had suggested we visit the La Crema tasting room in Healdsburg.  Healdsburg is just a short drive from Windsor. Many folks are familiar with their chardonnay. We were met in this sophisticated tasting room by a lovely young lady named Brittany Sweeting, who served as our host for the visit. Brittany was as bubbly as champagne, yet smooth as a first class pinot noir. Her knowledge of the area was amazing. Before we left, we had everything we needed to know about Healdsburg written down on paper along with tasting cards for other vineyards.

The tasting room was as elegant as a boutique gift shop on Rodeo Drive, yet we felt so at ease in the reserve tasting room. We found out that La Crema was part of the Jackson Family of wines, you know, Kendall Jackson. This was clearly an example of the “don’t-judge -a-tasting-room” from the outside window theory, or by its name or its label. Go inside, you never know what’s inside the front door. We had so much fun there during our two hour visit that we invited Brittany to Oregon to join us for visits to some of our favorite wineries in Oregon. We sure hope she takes us up on our offer!

When we say “It’s all about the experience “ of tasting wine at its source, we really had a five out of five glass visit to these two places. You cannot miss these on your next visit to Sonoma County.

We rounded out the day with dinner was at Chinois Asian Fusion restaurant. This made a great first day even better. We ended our first day in Sonoma with a visit to the Windsor town square for some holiday lights. The square was filled with trees decorated by local businesses, including lots of wineries, as a fund raiser for a local charity.

Keep on Wandering. Join us for the next blog post.

IF THIS WAS MY LAST DAY ON EARTH……..