A couple of hours north of San Francisco lies Sonoma Valley. Slightly less famous perhaps than its wealthy neighbour Napa, but none-the-less beautiful and utterly beguiling. Vines, woods and dark earth baking in the California sunshine.
There are two things to do in Sonoma. The first is to get outside and explore the countryside. Because it’s beautiful. Dreamy hazy movie sunshine beautiful.
We even made a tiny rattlesnake friend during our rambles. Shame that she was a little camera shy! I can officially tick ‘see rattlesnake’ off my list of life goals (my goals are weird, live with it).
The second thing to do is Sonoma is drink wine (yeah, I lied about the sobriety). Many wine, all the wine. There is nothing I like more than a rich, dark red wine. Something from a heavy bottle with broad sexy shoulders. After the heat of the day it was quite nice to have a little Zinfandel in a cool underground wine cave.
Only to emerge blinking and slightly tipsy into the blinding sunlight.
Four wineries in a day doesn’t sound like many, but multiply that by 5-6 small glasses of wine in each one and you’ll understand why I was happily singing along to Spice Girls in the bus back to the hotel!
Needless to say, that night I enjoyed the deep sleep of the slightly inebriated. And the morning sore head of an idiot who tasted too much wine and regrets nothing!