Play: A Sonoma getaway reveals undaunted spirits, delicious fare and a swoon-worthy salumi spot.
The holiday season is upon us — and California’s Wine Country towns, hills and valleys are twinkle-lit and tinsel dazzled. Supporting Sonoma by eating, drinking and cavorting in one of our Golden State’s most lovely regions? This may be the most awesome civic duty ever.
Hotel doors are open wide. Marvelous aromas emanate from chic bistros. And the wineries? Those cabs and zins are not going to drink themselves, people. It’s high time to head north.
We’ve arrived in Healdsburg on a drizzly Sunday, after wending our way through Sonoma County, stopping off at some of our favorite spots, from the Fremont Diner to the vineyards of Kenwood, where nearly every winery — except, heartbreakingly, Paradise Ridge — survived, including Chateau St. Jean. Yes, you can see the stunning, devastated path of the wildfires as they rolled through this region, but the vineyards have turned every shade of autumn, town squares are decked in their finest twinkly strands and the sense of #SonomaPride is contagious.
We’ve settled for the weekend in a bedand-breakfast two blocks from Healdsburg’s adorable village square, ready to lace up our sneakers and explore. On this misty weekend, it’s the perfect home base for any Sonoma wine wanderings. Whether you’re
hankering for Dry Creek tastings or Alexander Valley forays, there are scores of wineries just a few minutes drive — or a quick walk — away.
Ridge Vineyards’ Lytton Springs tasting room, for example, lies just outside town, offering zinfandel fans single-vineyard tasting flights ($10) with a side of epic views. Geyserville’s wineries — Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Mercury Wine and more — are mere minutes north. And if the weather’s fine, you can pick up a picnic first at Healdsburg’s historic Jimtown Store, where Carrie Brown and her staff pack box lunches — baguettes filled with ham and Brie, perhaps, and cream cheese brownies to sate your sweet tooth.
But you’ll find so much to do in cozy, walkable Healdsburg that you may never leave town at all. Healdsburg Shed, the market and cafe complex, can beguile you for an entire afternoon. More than 20 wine-tasting rooms — plus the new Sonoma Cider taproom — line the streets. And so many new sipping and dining options have opened in the last year, you’d be hard-pressed to visit them all.
We certainly gave it our best shot. We peeked into the new Duke’s Spirited Cocktails, where housemade syrups and infusions rule the mixology roost and tiki pop-ups pop up regularly. We checked out the supper club menu at Brass Rabbit, the newest venture from Chalkboard executive chef Shane McAnelly. And then, we went all porky. Turns out winemaker Pete Seghesio has been pursuing some delicious new passions.
Seghesio Family Vineyards has been a Sonoma institution for 120 years — the last 20-plus under Pete’s direction. But when Seghesio left the family business, it was to start a new one: Journeyman Meat Co., a chic, sleek butcher shop, salumeria and wine bar just a couple of blocks from Shed. (In fact, you’ll find it in the same Seghesio-owned building that houses Kyle Connaughton’s Single Thread, the buzzy new restaurant that earned two Michelin stars its first time out.)
The long, narrow Journeyman space offers woodfired pizza and flights ($15$28) that pair Seghesio’s housemade salumi with his Journeyman and San Lorenzo wines, named for his Italian great-grandfather’s hometown. And stretching down one long, dark wall is an enormous illustration that proclaims — in Italian — the divine provenance of pork.
Naturally, we pigged out. It was our civic duty and it was delightful.