Nelson's Weblog: culture / travel / healdsburg

Healdsburg and Sonoma county

Looking for a nice weekend vacation in the wine country of California? Forget Napa; too crowded. Sonoma County is a good alternative; more rustic than Napa, more laid back. But still quite cultured and beautiful with great wine.

I spent most of the weekend in Healdsburg, CA, about an hour and a half north of San Francisco just off 101. It's a cute little town with an upscale tourist infrastructure but still relaxed. The Hotel Healdsburg was pleasant (but not perfect). The real highlight was Charlie Palmer's Dry Creek Kitchen, a fantastic restaurant concentrating deeply on local food and wine. Healdsburg is full of good looking restaurants: Bistro Ralph, Madrona Manor, Zin, etc.

As for wine, the guide you need is the Russian River Wine Road, particularly the maps. We concentrated on Dry Creek valley, a long narrow valley with a great little road on the west side. Lambert Bridge is an old favourite there. This time we dropped in on Raymond Burr and Yoakim Bridge, both small wineries that only sell direct. Excellent wines, very full flavoured with some refinement.

The best wine of the weekend was at the restaurant sommelier's recommendation, a Hafner Vineyard's 1993 Alexander Valley Cabernet. The elegance of a proper aged Bordeaux at a price that wasn't wacko.

Alas, the housing prices are wacko: nice homes in Healdsburg are $700,000 and up, and a little 1800 square foot vacation home in the hills with a few acres of land is $1.5M or so. So much for the fantasy of a weekend place.

culture • travel
2004-03-22 00:48 Z


Mastodon @nelson@tech.lgbt Linkblog Fri 2024-04-19 Balatro Immolate Turning Point voting fraud Thu 2024-04-18 Bicycles of World War II AI-ese Mon 2024-04-15 Butterick’s Practical Typography Wicked Bible Sat 2024-04-13 Normalization of Jan 6 Followgraph for Mastodon South Yuba Canal Fri 2024-04-12 Waffle House order marking Wed 2024-04-10 Boy Meets Boy Meets Boys’ Love Termux Tue 2024-04-09 Netflitwitter Nigeria’s Scrabble King Internet eclipse traffic Electric rickshaws Mon 2024-04-08 Eclipse power dashboard Windows terminal latency Grass Valley pasties Django's left hand Search Archives 2023 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2022 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2021 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2020 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2019 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2018 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2017 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2016 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2015 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2014 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2013 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2012 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2011 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2010 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2009 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2008 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2007 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2006 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2005 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2004 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2003 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2002 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2001 12 11 10 09 08 07 One good site MDN Nelson Minar nelson@monkey.org Blog licensed under a Creative Commons License		Healdsburg and Sonoma county Looking for a nice weekend vacation in the wine country of California? Forget Napa; too crowded. Sonoma County is a good alternative; more rustic than Napa, more laid back. But still quite cultured and beautiful with great wine. I spent most of the weekend in Healdsburg, CA, about an hour and a half north of San Francisco just off 101. It's a cute little town with an upscale tourist infrastructure but still relaxed. The Hotel Healdsburg was pleasant (but not perfect). The real highlight was Charlie Palmer's Dry Creek Kitchen, a fantastic restaurant concentrating deeply on local food and wine. Healdsburg is full of good looking restaurants: Bistro Ralph, Madrona Manor, Zin, etc. As for wine, the guide you need is the Russian River Wine Road, particularly the maps. We concentrated on Dry Creek valley, a long narrow valley with a great little road on the west side. Lambert Bridge is an old favourite there. This time we dropped in on Raymond Burr and Yoakim Bridge, both small wineries that only sell direct. Excellent wines, very full flavoured with some refinement. The best wine of the weekend was at the restaurant sommelier's recommendation, a Hafner Vineyard's 1993 Alexander Valley Cabernet. The elegance of a proper aged Bordeaux at a price that wasn't wacko. Alas, the housing prices are wacko: nice homes in Healdsburg are $700,000 and up, and a little 1800 square foot vacation home in the hills with a few acres of land is $1.5M or so. So much for the fantasy of a weekend place. culture • travel 2004-03-22 00:48 Z Nelson's Weblog • culture • travel → australia2006, berlin2017, france2005, germany2004, new Zealand, slovakia2009, zurich2005