California Roadtrip - Sonoma...hic!

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The 21st April started with a quick jaunt around Sonoma Plaza. The Plaza is a one of America's 'Historic Landmarks' and heralds itself as 'the birthplace of American California' - it was where the Republic of California was briefly formed after a quick squirmish and relatively diplomatic overturn of the Commandant of Northern California, Mariano Guadelupe Vellejo on the 14th June 1846. It was nationalised 25 days later in the American-Mexican war in but the Californian Republic flag still frequents as many household porches in Sonoma as the Stars and Stripes.

Along with some true American history, Sonoma Plaza and the streets around it are home to some fabulous restaurants and an astounding amount of French-inspired shops. Judging from the plethora of these shops, they must have pillaged every chateau in France of its furniture and antiques in order to meet the demand of the Wine Country inhabitants' passion with all things Français.

Luckily the plaza is small so we had time for a quick coffee and croissant before being picked up for our wine tasting tour by Platypus Tours. The sustenance was well-timed as we were in our first wine cave, Deerfield, by 11am. A little early for wine you might think but I naturally embraced the early opening hours of Sonoma. Well, it would have been silly not to, non?

The tour was tailored around what we and the 2 other couples wanted to do e.g. if we had specific wineries we wanted to visit. A nice touch. And it was great value for money as we managed to fit in 5 wineries in the 6 hours and...hic...over 30 individual wine tastings between the two of us. Sounds great (it honestly was!) but we have no idea what the wines tasted like after the third winery! We visited Deerfield (loved the $100 Meritage), Simon Levi Cellars, B.R. Cohn Winery, Imagery Estate Winery (loved the art gallery) and Ledson Winery (loved the food shop – great cheese).

Unfortunately it also meant that we really didn't fancy any wine with our meal at the fantastic El Dorado Kitchen that night. It was wonderful food (home-made charcuterie and pates to die for) but a seriously hard-going bottle of red wine. Something I never thought I'd say!

Other restaurants / places to consider in Sonoma:
The Girl and the Fig (at the time it was undergoing some external construction work but was one of the places that was highly recommended to us.)
The Harvest Moon Café (very small but looked so warm and welcoming)
Maya (Mexican)
Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop (Chunky Monkey; enough said.)
Sonoma Cheese Factory (smelt amazing as we wandered by in the morning)

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