Gorgeous grapes at Benziger winery in Sonoma, CA!
Today’s post is brought to you by means of “too much vacay, too little time.” I’ve been out of town for three of the past four weekends, so the cooking and relaxing at home time has been minimal and the eating/drinking lots of delicious and decadent things time has been what’s up. Tough life, right?!
Next week, we’ll be back to our regular scheduled recipe programming, but today, I am super excited to share some of the awesome gems from our recent Sonoma trip! We’ve lied in the Bay Area for 6 months now and haven’t been up to wine country yet, so we were super excited for this trip. Our close friends from college came up from LA to visit us (and the wine) this past weekend. The six of us drove up to Sonoma, hit up a tour and two tastings in one day (plus a fantastic dinner) and ended the evening by drinking two incredible bottles of wine that we bought throughout the day while wearing PJs in the hotel lobby. Now if that’s not a perfect day, I don’t know what is!
First things first: wine country is EXPENSIVE. It is unavoidable, slightly painful, and something that’s best just accepted early on. We spent a TON of time looking for the best deals possible for hotel and transportation, and learned a lot for next time. I thought the hotel we stayed at, the Sheraton Sonoma County (details at bottom of this post) was a pretty darn good deal for a very nice hotel. It’s definitely not the quaint bed and breakfast that you might expect or want in wine country, but that shit is expensive. By staying a little out of the way (in the adorable town of Petaluma), we were able to still stay at a nice hotel and save a TON of money. Highly recommend!
Another recommendation: drive, hire a driver, whatever you want – just don’t try to Uber/cab. We had heard that this was pretty easy around wine country (as you’d think the demand is pretty high, right?!), but that couldn’t have been more wrong. Transportation was the only snafu of the day – Ubers were incredibly hard to come by, every cab took 30 minutes to an hour to arrive, and the prices were absolutely insane. We lived and we learned though, and next time I know to just take it easy on the tastings and drive!
OK, now onto the fun part: the WINE! We started off with a tour and tasting at Benziger Winery, which is one of the few certified biodynamic wineries in the entire region.
The tour was super cool because you got to see how crazy it really is to be certified biodynamic – it’s all about going back to the roots of old-fashioned farming, with as little chemicals, machinery, or alteration to the natural land as possible. The tour guide told us they dedicate HALF of their property to growing natural predators to control the pests that harm the grapes so they can avoid using chemicals. Also, they hand-pick every single grape on the gigantic property. If that’s not a major commitment to sustainable growing, I don’t know what is! I highly recommend the tour at Benziger because it’s definitely a unique winery in an area where there are so many, they tend to blend together a bit.
Most importantly, the wine was fantastic and the employees on both the tour and the tasting were incredibly friendly and knowledgeable. We got to try six different wines and all were great. I definitely recommend stopping by, and don’t miss the tour!
Next we headed over to B.R. Cohn, another local Sonoma winery that is set on an absolutely GORGEOUS property. It looks like a beautiful estate in a vineyard paradise, guys. We rolled in a bit late for our tasting (thank you, terrible cab service) but still got to try a fantastic sample of six different wines here too. These wines were really out of this world – overall, I definitely thought they were more unique and even tastier than the wines at Benziger (not that either were anything less than fantastic).
We got to sample a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, a Syrah-Zinfandel blend, a Cabernet Franc, and the smoothest Cabernet Sauvignon I’ve ever tried. The six of us loved their wines so much we ended up splitting an annual membership – so I can’t wait to reap the benefits of that in a few months!!
After all that wining, it was definitely time for some dining. I had (obviously) spent a long time Googling Petaluma restaurants and settled on a reservation at Wild Goat Bistro. It’s set in a cozy little mini-mall (which was way more charming than it sounds, trust me) in downtown Petaluma, CA. We were seated right away in their little terrace area and immediately ordered some cold, refreshing beers (a break from wine was necessary at this point). For appetizers, we all shared the cheese plate and the meatballs baked with tomato sauce and cheese. Both were phenomenal! The cheese platter included a Humboldt Fog blue cheese (which is always super dreamy), a really unique soft shaved goat’s cheese, and a classic ball o’ buffalo mozzarella. The kicker (in my opinion) was the fantastic fig jam the cheese was served with – I could eat fig jam and cheese on bread every day and be a happy gal. It complimented the cheese perfectly and was the perfect way to start our meal! The meatballs were also incredibly tender and flavorful, and were the perfect size for sharing – with some extra bread to soak up all that cheesy tomato sauce goodness.
For our meal, Brad and I split the Farmer’s Market Salad and the Blanco y Rosso pizza. The salad was exactly what I was looking for – a really simple, veggie-loaded mixed greens salad with the perfect amount of goat cheese to add some bite and flavor while still keeping it light. The pizza was seriously fantastic – sliced meatballs, big hunks of ricotta, and the perfect light tomato sauce – all topped with some Calabrian chiles for that perfect spicy hit at the end of each bite. Our friends loved their pizzas too, so I really think you can’t go wrong with a pizza here!
Finally, we must discuss dessert. The waitress told us their specialty was their homemade cakes, and they had eight (EIGHT!!!) kinds to choose from. The six of us split their blueberry-lavender cake and their chocolate salted caramel cake. Now normally, I’d say the chocolate salted caramel would be way more my type of dessert, but guys, the blueberry-lavender totally took the cake! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) I didn’t get a picture because everyone immediately devoured it, but it was SO moist, loaded up with real blueberries and the most insanely creamy and unique lavender frosting. I could have eaten the whole piece myself (and then probably thrown up, so it was probably for the best I was forced to share). The chocolate was definitely good, but the blueberry-lavender totally blew it out of the water. You can’t come here without sampling it!
Overall, the meal was fantastic, and was the perfect way to top off a beautiful day of drinking wine with some of our best friends. This trip definitely made me realize how lucky we are to be so close to such fantastic wine, and I think we will definitely be taking more advantage of it in the future. My only rule is that a stop at Wild Goat Bistro for that freakin’ cake is NOT optional.
Hope you enjoyed this quickie trip through wine country! I already can’t wait to go back!
Contact Information
Hotel:
Sheraton Sonoma County – Petaluma
745 Baywood Dr, Petaluma, CA 94954
(707) 283-2888
http://www.sheratonsonoma.com/
Wineries:
Benziger Family Winery
1883 London Ranch Rd, Glen Ellen, CA 95442
(888) 490-2739
http://www.benziger.com/
B.R. Cohn Winery
15000 Sonoma Hwy, Glen Ellen, CA 95442
https://brcohn.com/
Restaurant
Wild Goat Bistro
Great Petaluma Mill Shopping Center
6 Petaluma Blvd N, Petaluma, CA 94952
http://www.wildgoatbistro.com/
