Sonoma County: Hills, Redwoods and a Slower Way to See Wine Country

Most guides to this part of California treat it as one long tasting room, a string of vineyards to work through, then a hotel back in Santa Rosa at the end of the day. Sonoma County holds more than that within a short drive: a historic plaza set around a Spanish mission, an old-growth redwood grove twenty minutes from the nearest vines, and a coastline that most first-time visitors never see. Wine is part of the picture here, not the whole of it.

A Valley Made for Slow Mornings

Several operators run early-morning balloon flights over Sonoma County, lifting off while the valley is still and the vineyard rows below have barely started the day. Landing comes an hour or so later, well ahead of the first tasting room opening its doors, which leaves a morning with nowhere in particular to be. Sonoma's back roads, Highway 12 and Arnold Drive among them, run narrow and low through oak woodland between one small town and the next, made for a slower kind of driving than the four-lane routes further south.

Where a Luxury RV Actually Helps

Winery parking lots here fit cars and the occasional van, not the tour buses that work the busier stretches of Napa. A luxury RV that uses a Mercedes Sprinter chassis is much easier to place on narrow roads and in smaller lots than a large Class A coach. It also shortens the distance between the last stop of the day and somewhere to sleep: for someone who wants to be close to the valley overnight, a campground a few miles away can make more sense than driving back to a hotel in town.

What a Class B Motorhome Means Here

For readers who haven't come across the term, a Class B motorhome is one of the smallest fully self-contained motorhome categories: a kitchen, a bathroom, and fresh and grey water tanks fitted into one vehicle closer in size to a large van than to the bus-bodied coaches most people picture. "Fully self-contained" is what matters at a campground like Sugarloaf Ridge, which has no hookups: water and a working stove come along for the night rather than depending on a site that has them.

The Plaza, the Mission and the Redwoods

Away from the vineyards and the valley roads, the town at the centre of the county carries more history than a wine list suggests. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo laid out Sonoma Plaza in 1835. It remains the largest plaza of its kind in California and still the town's focal point. Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma sits at one corner, the twenty-first and last of the California missions, founded in 1823. The plaza carries a heavier piece of history too: the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt, which briefly declared California an independent republic, started here. A half-hour drive northwest, Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve holds old-growth trees that were already centuries old when Vallejo laid out the square, a reminder that this part of California was never only about grapes.

When the Valley Gives Way to the Pacific

About an hour northwest of the plaza, the vineyards give way to the coast. The drive out passes redwoods, cliffs, and produce stands on the way to Bodega Bay, a working harbour town centred on its fishing fleet rather than wine, or further north to Jenner, where the Russian River meets the sea near Fort Ross State Historic Park. The air runs cooler out there and the fog sits thicker, a different Sonoma from the one in the tasting rooms.

Healdsburg's Square and a Different Kind of Wine Country

Healdsburg sits further up the valley around its own square, smaller than Sonoma's but ringed with restaurants that draw on what the surrounding farms produce that week rather than a fixed menu. On Saturday mornings, the Healdsburg Farmers Market fills the Foley Family Community Pavilion a short walk from the square, with produce, cheese, and other local goods on the tables from spring through the end of the year.

Where to Spend the Night

Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, seven miles east of Santa Rosa near Kenwood, takes RVs up to thirty feet, well within reach of most Class B coaches, though there are no hookups at the campground and reservations run through Reserve California up to six months out. Waking up there means a short drive back down into the valley rather than a long one in from Santa Rosa or Napa.

A Region Worth More Than a Tasting List

By the time the balloon lands, the market stalls close for the day, and fog settles back over Sugarloaf Ridge for the night, wine turns out to be one stop on a longer list, not the whole of the trip.

This is a contributed article....