California Trip - Sonoma County

From May 12-16, Tyson and I went to California with my sisters to celebrate my older sister Stefanie's 40th birthday. We first went to Sonoma County, where we stayed in Sonoma and visited a couple of great wineries. We also did some amazing shopping and ate at some great restaurants! It was such a fun girls' trip... Tyson LOVED all the attention with his 5 mommies! (2 of Stefanie's friends joined us in Sonoma too)

On the way to Sonoma from the airport... we had to do the tourist thing!

The first winery we visited was in Forestville, the Arnot -Roberts winery... very small, in a warehouse... but amazing wines! Here Dustin is collecting samples from young 2009 wines to send off to the lab

Where else can you taste wine straight from the barrel, barely 8 months old... mmmm in a beaker, no less!

They were sending samples off to a lab to test it for certain chemicals I forgot the names of... to see if it's ready for the next stage of fermentation.

Tasting their finished wines... yum!

Tyson enjoying the fun too

The line-up

The wine "cellar"

Nathan, Stephen (my cousin's husband), Quinn, and Dustin

The story... I hope I have it right: Stephen went to high school with these guys, thus the private tour... Nathan and Dustin run the winery... Quinn (Nathan's brother) runs a business that makes French oak wine barrels. Nathan and Quinn are grandsons of Robert Mondavi. All clear?! There will be a quiz at the end...

The Hartford vineyard... ancient vine pinot noir grapes

Me, Kirsten, and Stefanie.... Tyson was sleeping off the wine.

Stef, Stephen, and Kir

Hartford winery... it was beautiful and they had wonderful wines!