Two years ago Lucian and I traveled to San Francisco. We debated spending some time in wine country, but decided that should be a separate trip. At one point I said "What if we took Spencer to Napa for his 21st?" And that's exactly what we did!
Spencer had the opportunity to spend some time with friends in both LA and San Francisco prior to our arrival. We picked him up in the city and headed north to Sonoma.
We had very little time to see the redwoods on our previous trip, so we took a short drive to hike amongst them our first day. They are amazing for sure.
After a long-ish hike, we drove to the top of a look out and enjoyed a picnic lunch.
Don't you love our rental car?
Afterwards, we headed to a hot springs spa and each had a mud bath, then soaked in the spring fed pools.
Day two consisted of wine tours. I really struggled with the perfect itinerary for this. There are so many options! We ended up touring two wineries and had amazing and very different experiences.
The first tour was a 3 hour long estate tour of a fabulous (and fancy) vineyard. There were food pairings and a tour of their gardens. Everything was beautiful! They put on a good show.
The final tasting room was set at the highest elevation on their property. The view was amazing as we sat down to an excellent meal and wine.
Our second stop was a much smaller vineyard that only sells their product on-site. As fate would have it, the third generation owner offered to give us a tour, covered in dust after working in the fields. He told us amazing stories about his grandmother coming from Italy at 19 and how she and her husband made it to California and eventually started the vineyard. It was an experience you can't beat.
He even signed some bottles for us!
Lucian flew on to LA for work after that, but Claire met Spen and I at the airport. She was very happy to have her Mommy home and visit briefly with her favorite big brother.
