Although I'm based near Philadelphia, I often endure the cross-country plane ride to the west coast to cover the California wine scene. If I had a few days and dollars to spend driving from Seattle to San Francisco, I would take in as much of the rugged scenery as possible along the coast on Route 101, where there are multiple sites for spotting whales and sea lions. I'd then head inland to Healdsburg, to start tasting wine (of course). Sonoma lacks neighbour Napa Valley's gloss and cachet, but stands toe-to-toe in history and wine quality. If my wallet was fat, it'd be into the hills for the culinary lunch tour at Chalk Hill Winery which has executive chef Didier Ageorges' incredible French-inspired food, and equally incredible valley views.
For something out of the ordinary, I'd take a side trip to Sebastopol to grab glasses of pinot noir rosé at the funky tasting room of rock star Les Claypool's Claypool Cellars. Les recently brought on board celebrated young winemaker Ross Cobb, who is a veteran of the local wine scene and is also crafting vibrant, complex Sonoma coast wines under his own label - I'd recommend the Cobb Emmaline Vineyard pinot noir. The small, colourful Claypool Cellars tasting room is the antithesis of anything resembling wine snobbery. It's crafted from a bright-red 1850s Southern Pacific railcar, which they have dubbed the Fancy Booze Caboose, and inside it is equal parts offbeat rock memorabilia, antique model train collection, and fine wine dispensary. The Claypools live nearby, and are some of the most down-to-earth rockers that you will ever meet (a good match for the laid-back vibe of the Russian river valley area that supplies their grapes).
There's no question that dinner would be at Sondra Bernstein's The Girl and The Fig in downtown Sonoma, where the walls are adorned with interesting art by Julie Higgins. The fresh food prepared there by John Toulze might just be the best in the entire Sonoma area – try the fig and arugula salad. Then it'd be treating the missus (OK and myself) to an evening at the Healdsburg Inn and Spa before hitting the road again to San Fran.
That's the kind of whistlestop tour that would put me into enough of a zen state to deal with the rest of the drive south to the "big little-city".
Joe Roberts writes the Wined Down column for Playboy.com and blogs at 1winedude.com
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