United States · California
Sonoma
The valley where California wine started, still poured in a farmyard by whoever made it.
Sonoma is the older and looser half of California wine country: the valley where the state's commercial wine trade actually began, wrapped around a Mexican-era plaza that is still the town's living room rather than a museum piece. Beyond that valley the county opens out to a scale its famous neighbour never reaches, with hot inland benchland growing old-vine Zinfandel, cool river flats where fog decides the harvest, groves of old-growth redwood, and a long stretch of cold, cliff-backed Pacific coast. The tasting rooms are more often a barn with a dog asleep in the doorway than a hilltop pavilion, and that difference in tone is the whole reason people choose this side of the mountains.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
English
Currency
USD
Timezone
UTC-7
Why you'll love Sonoma
The wine several genuinely different growing regions inside one county, from baking inland benchland to river flats under coastal fog, so a weekend here covers more ground than a single-valley trip ever could.
The tone appointments are easier to come by, the person pouring often made the wine, and nobody cares what you turned up in.
The history the last of the California missions, the plaza where a three-week republic was declared, and the cellar that started the state's wine industry all sit within a few streets of each other.
The range redwood groves, a wild surf coast and slow river towns are all within an hour of the vines, which keeps a trip here from being only about drinking.
Best time to visit
Feb, Apr-Oct
14-25° days
38.511° N, 122.847° W
UTC-7 · America/Los Angeles
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Weather & when to go to Sonoma
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Feb, Apr-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Sonoma
There is no bad season, only trade-offs. Deep winter is the wet, grey stretch, when storms arrive in runs and the low-lying river towns keep an eye on the water; harvest is the opposite problem, the busiest and dearest weeks of the year, when the inland valleys run properly hot and every good table is booked out weeks ahead.
Top things to do in Sonoma
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Sonoma Plaza - the largest town square in California
history food 👍 PopularEight acres of lawn, duck pond and old trees, laid out by General Vallejo in the 1830s and still ringed by the adobes he built. The city hall marooned in the middle was famously given four identical faces so no merchant on any side could claim to have been shown the back of the building, and the Bear Flag monument on the north-east corner marks where a handful of settlers declared their own republic. Cheese counters, bakeries, tasting rooms and the town's best browsing all sit on the four surrounding blocks.
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Mission San Francisco Solano - the last of the California missions
history culture artsThe twenty-first and northernmost link in the chain, founded in 1823 and the only one established under Mexican rather than Spanish rule, planted here partly to watch the Russians on the coast. The long adobe chapel and its cool row of rooms hold a set of watercolours painted of all twenty-one missions, and the same state park ticket covers the soldiers' barracks across the plaza and Vallejo's gabled house in its own grounds a short walk north-west.
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Buena Vista Winery - the state's first commercial cellar
history foodAgoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian showman who called himself a count, planted this hillside east of the plaza in 1857 and had tunnels driven into the rock by Chinese labourers to age the wine at a steady temperature. The stone press house still stands at the head of a wooded lane, and the whole place leans cheerfully into the story of the man who imported thousands of European cuttings and then vanished in Nicaragua.
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Jack London State Historic Park - the Wolf House ruins above Glen Ellen
history nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedLondon poured the proceeds of his books into a ranch on Sonoma Mountain and a house of volcanic boulders and redwood that burned to a shell days before he was due to move in; the walls and chimneys still stand in the trees, which is a stranger and better sight than the finished house would have been. Also on the ranch: the cottage where he wrote his last books, his grave under a red boulder, the round stone piggery he was mocked for, and miles of oak and redwood trails climbing the ridge.
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Dry Creek Valley - old-vine Zinfandel on one back road
food scenic 👍 PopularA narrow valley north-west of Healdsburg where gnarled head-trained Zinfandel vines, some of them well over a century old, grow on the gravel benches above the creek, with Sauvignon Blanc on the valley floor. Almost everything sits on one road, the crossroads store dates to the 1880s and still makes the sandwiches everyone eats on a tasting-room porch, and the reservoir at the top of the valley is where locals swim in summer.
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Russian River Valley - Pinot Noir grown in the fog
food scenic 👍 PopularMarine air funnels inland through a low gap in the coast hills most summer nights and pools over these flats until late morning, which is why Pinot Noir and Chardonnay ripen slowly here and taste nothing like the county's inland reds. The lanes off Westside Road string together small producers in barns and sheds, and a sparkling-wine house that has been carving cellars into the hillside near the river since the 1880s runs tours through the old brandy stills.
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Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve - old-growth coast redwoods
nature wildlife scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedA pocket of ancient forest the logger Colonel Armstrong fenced off instead of cutting, a couple of minutes north of Guerneville. The flat loop from the gate takes you past the tallest and the oldest trees in the grove in under an hour on level ground, the light through the canopy is dim and green even at midday, and it is markedly colder in there than in the car park. Steeper trails climb out of the grove into the adjoining state recreation area.
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Healdsburg Plaza - the county's polished square
food shoppingA Spanish-style plaza with a bandstand, sitting at the junction of three growing regions, which is why the tasting rooms, kitchens and shops around it are the most ambitious in the county. It is the one town here that behaves like a destination in its own right rather than a base, and the Russian River beach at the edge of town keeps it from getting too pleased with itself.
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Gundlach Bundschu - six generations on the same Sonoma hill
food historyA Bavarian immigrant bought this land in 1858 and his family has never let go of it, which makes it the longest-running family winery in the state. The setting is the draw as much as the wine: a lake and picnic hill, a barrel cave dug into the slope, and a farm road out of the back of the town of Sonoma that feels an hour further from anywhere than it is.
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Charles M. Schulz Museum - Peanuts in Santa Rosa
culture arts historySchulz drew Peanuts from this town for around forty years, and the museum next to the ice rink he built for the community holds original strips, a recreation of his studio and a wall-sized mural of Lucy and the football assembled from thousands of tiles. Better than it sounds for adults, and one of the few things in the county built with children in mind.
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Safari West - giraffe and rhino in the Mayacamas foothills
nature wildlife adventureA serious wildlife preserve on hilly oak grassland north-east of Santa Rosa, toured in open-sided vehicles among giraffe, rhino, cheetah, antelope and a large aviary, with canvas tents to sleep in if you want to stay. The owner refused to evacuate during the 2017 firestorm and hosed the property down through the night, which is why the animals and most of the preserve are still here.
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Occidental and the Bohemian Highway - back roads of the west county
off beaten path foodA narrow road that runs from the river through second-growth redwood to a one-street former logging town of Italian family restaurants, then on south past a hamlet known for a wood-fired bakery and a cedar-enzyme bathhouse. This is the scruffy, counter-cultural western half of the county, where apple orchards and goat dairies outnumber vineyards, and the coast is only fifteen minutes further on.
Best areas to stay in Sonoma
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Sonoma town and the plaza
First-time visitors $$Historic square, walkable and unhurried
Explore hotels in Sonoma town and the plaza →
Healdsburg
Food and wine focus $$$Polished plaza where three valleys meet
Explore hotels in Healdsburg →
Glen Ellen and Kenwood
Quiet valley base $$Creekside hamlets under wooded ridges
Explore hotels in Glen Ellen and Kenwood →
Guerneville and the Russian River
River and redwoods $$Redwoods, river beaches, easygoing resort town
Explore hotels in Guerneville and the Russian River →
Santa Rosa
Practical central base $Workaday county seat, most rooms and roads
Explore hotels in Santa Rosa →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Sonoma
Getting to & around Sonoma
Getting there
Fly into Sonoma County Airport at Santa Rosa, or into San Francisco and drive an hour or so north.
Flight
Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS)
A small airport about 15 minutes north of Santa Rosa, with domestic flights to west-coast and mountain-west cities. There is no useful public transport from it into wine country, so nearly everyone collects a hire car at the terminal; a taxi or car service takes roughly half an hour to Healdsburg and closer to an hour to the town of Sonoma. Most long-haul and international arrivals come through San Francisco or Oakland instead and drive north from there.
Drive
From San Francisco it is about an hour and a quarter to the town of Sonoma, either over the Golden Gate and across the north bay or through the East Bay and Vallejo; Healdsburg is roughly an hour and a half straight up Highway 101. Traffic out of the city on a Friday afternoon can add a great deal to both.
Ferry
Vallejo ferry terminal
Boats cross from the San Francisco waterfront to Vallejo, about half an hour by road from the town of Sonoma, and to Larkspur in Marin. It is the pleasant way to start the trip, though you still need a car or a lift at the other end.
Train
Santa Rosa Downtown
The regional commuter line runs up the Highway 101 corridor from the Larkspur ferry terminal through Petaluma and Santa Rosa and on north, meeting the San Francisco ferry at its southern end. It serves the corridor towns only - nothing on it reaches the Sonoma Valley, the river or the coast.
Coach
Santa Rosa
Scheduled airport coaches run up from San Francisco and Oakland airports to Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa several times a day, which is the one way to arrive without either driving or hiring a car.
Getting around
Car
The honest answer for almost every visitor. The county is large, the good wineries are down farm roads, and the drive between the valley, the river and the coast is a real part of the trip. Agree a driver before the first tasting or plan on spit buckets - enforcement is taken seriously here.
TBC
Walking
Both main plazas are compact and easy to cover on foot, with enough tasting rooms, restaurants and shops around each to fill a day without moving the car.
Free
Hired driver or tour
Cars, vans and small-group tours with a driver are widely available and the standard way to spend a full day tasting. Most will build a route around the appointments you have already made.
TBC
Bike
One of the great cycling regions of the state - the valley floors are gentle and the back roads through Dry Creek and along the west side of the Russian River are classics. Rental and guided-ride outfits work out of the main towns.
TBC
Bus
County buses link Santa Rosa with Sonoma, Petaluma, Healdsburg, Sebastopol and the river towns, with a separate town service around Santa Rosa itself. Useful in a pinch, but the timetables are built for commuters and school runs, not for tasting-room hopping.
TBC
Rideshare and taxi
Reliable enough in Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Petaluma and Healdsburg. Thin to non-existent out on the ranch roads, up the river and anywhere near the coast, so do not count on getting picked up again from a rural winery.
TBC
Day trips from Sonoma
Napa Valley
Full dayWine region
The neighbouring valley is close enough to make a day of from anywhere in Sonoma, and the contrast is the point: a narrower valley, one long main road, grander architecture and a Cabernet culture that trades on precision rather than informality. The twisting mountain roads between the two counties are the scenic way over and add a good half hour.
Getting there
car | tour
About 30-40 min by car east across the Carneros flats, or over the ridge road from Glen Ellen
Sonoma Coast and Fort Ross
Full dayCliff coast drive
Cold, treeless headlands with grey whales passing offshore in the winter and spring migrations, harbour seals hauled out where the Russian River meets the sea, and a stack of coves and bluff trails between them. The inland village of Bodega still has the schoolhouse and church Hitchcock used for The Birds, and further north a reconstructed Russian stockade and chapel from 1812 stand on the cliff above the sea otter grounds that put it there.
Getting there
car
About 1 hr 15 min by car west to Bodega Bay, then north on Highway 1
Point Reyes National Seashore
Full dayPeninsula and lighthouse
A whole peninsula sitting on the far side of the San Andreas fault, drifting north with the Pacific plate: elk on the ridge, a long wind-scoured beach, a lighthouse down a steep flight of steps into the fog, and oyster beds in the estuary behind. The road out passes through the oldest working dairy country in the state, which is why the cheese on the way back is worth planning around.
Getting there
car
About 1 hr 30 min by car south-west through the west Marin dairy country
San Francisco
Full dayBig city
Close enough to do properly in a day and much more pleasant approached by water, leaving the car at Vallejo or Larkspur and letting the boat land you at the Ferry Building. It is also the sensible way to bookend the trip if you are flying in and out of the Bay Area anyway.
Getting there
car | ferry
About 1 hr 15 min by car south, or drive to a ferry terminal and cross by boat
Petaluma
Half dayHistoric river town
A river port that got rich on chickens and grain, missed the 1906 earthquake almost entirely and kept a downtown of cast-iron shopfronts intact, which is why film crews keep using it for period America. Antique shops, an old-school main street and the adobe ranch house Vallejo built to supply his Sonoma garrison on the hill just outside town.
Getting there
car | train
About 30-40 min by car south-west, or by commuter train from Santa Rosa
A little history of Sonoma
This is Coast Miwok, Southern Pomo and Wappo country, and it was the last corner of Alta California the mission system reached. A young padre founded San Francisco Solano at Sonoma in 1823 without proper authorisation, making it both the twenty-first mission and the only one established after Mexican independence; when the missions were broken up a decade later, Mariano Vallejo was sent north to hold the frontier against the Russians trading down the coast at Fort Ross, and laid out the plaza and barracks that still shape the town. In June 1846 a party of American settlers rode into that plaza, took Vallejo prisoner and raised a homemade flag with a bear and a star on it. Their California Republic lasted about three weeks before the US Navy raised its own flag at Monterey, but the bear is still on the state flag.
The wine came next. Agoston Haraszthy planted Buena Vista east of the plaza in 1857 and brought back thousands of European vine cuttings, and by the end of the century Sonoma was the centre of the state's wine trade, with Italian and German families farming the valleys and a co-operative movement to move the fruit. Phylloxera and then Prohibition destroyed almost all of it; a handful of growers survived on sacramental wine and grapes shipped east to home winemakers, and the industry did not properly recover until the 1970s. Sonoma's modern reputation was built on the cooler ground its neighbour lacks - fog-fed Pinot Noir and Chardonnay near the river, old Zinfandel on the inland benches - and on staying deliberately less grand about it. Fire is now part of the story too: the hills on every side have burned in living memory, and the towns have rebuilt each time.
Mission San Francisco Solano is founded at Sonoma, the last and northernmost of California's twenty-one missions and the only one begun under Mexican rule.
Mariano Vallejo lays out the town around an eight-acre plaza, the largest in California, with a garrison barracks on its north side.
Settlers seize Vallejo and raise the Bear Flag over the plaza, declaring a California Republic that lasts around three weeks.
Agoston Haraszthy founds Buena Vista east of town and imports European cuttings, beginning California's commercial wine industry.
The Korbel brothers turn their logged-over ground on the Russian River to sparkling wine, and the river valley starts growing grapes instead of redwood.
The San Francisco earthquake flattens much of downtown Santa Rosa, which sits directly on a strand of the same fault system.
Jack London's Wolf House burns days before he is due to move in; he dies at the Glen Ellen ranch three years later.
Prohibition closes almost every winery in the county; a few survive on sacramental wine and grapes sold to home winemakers.
A California Chardonnay beats the white Burgundies at the Paris tasting; the winning wine was made in Napa but grown largely on Sonoma's Alexander Valley fruit.
Sonoma Valley, Dry Creek, Russian River and Alexander Valley are drawn as separate appellations, formalising how differently the county's corners ripen.
The Tubbs Fire runs overnight from Calistoga across the hills into Santa Rosa, destroying whole suburbs and killing dozens across the region.
The Kincade Fire above Geyserville forces one of the largest evacuations in the county's history.
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FAQs about Sonoma
▸ When is the best time to visit Sonoma?
April through October is the long dependable stretch, dry and warm inland and taking in bud break, the growing season and then harvest. February stands apart as the quiet green window, when the hills are at their brightest, mustard flowers between the rows and the tasting rooms have time for you. The rest of winter and the shoulder around it is the wet, grey part of the year, though the storms come through in runs rather than settling in, and no month here is a write-off.
▸ How many days do you need in Sonoma?
Two to four. A weekend covers the plaza, the historic wineries and one other valley properly. Four days is what lets you add the river and the redwoods or a coast drive without spending the whole trip behind the wheel, and it is the length most people wish they had booked.
▸ Do you need a car in Sonoma?
Effectively yes, unless you base yourself on one plaza and never leave it. The county is big, the wineries are down farm roads, and the bus network was built for commuters. The standard solution for a tasting day is a hired driver or a small-group tour; drink-driving enforcement here is serious and the roads are dark and narrow at night.
▸ Sonoma or Napa - which should I pick?
Napa is narrower, grander and more polished, built around Cabernet and a single valley road, and it is the easier trip if you want everything within twenty minutes. Sonoma is bigger, more varied and less formal, with several distinct growing regions plus redwoods, a river and a coast, at the cost of more driving. Couples on a special trip often prefer Napa; people who want a countryside weekend that happens to involve wine usually prefer Sonoma. They are half an hour apart, so you can also just do both.
▸ Do you need appointments for wine tasting?
For the smaller and better producers, yes - book ahead, and a few days out is often enough here, which is not always true next door. Plazas in Sonoma and Healdsburg have walk-in tasting rooms if you would rather not plan. Tasting fees are normal and rise with the ambition of the estate; many are waived or credited if you buy, and most places will let a group share a flight.
▸ Is wildfire a real concern here?
It is a genuine part of life in this county, concentrated in the dry, windy end of summer and autumn, and the hills on several sides have burned within the last decade. What it usually means for a visitor is smoke haze for a few days rather than danger, plus the possibility that the utility switches power off in the hills during high-wind warnings, which closes tasting rooms and hotels without much notice. Check conditions before an autumn trip and keep plans loose, but do not let it put you off the season.
▸ Is Sonoma expensive?
Less than its neighbour, but this is still an affluent corner of California. Healdsburg and the smart valley inns are the dear end, Santa Rosa and the towns along the highway are markedly cheaper for the same drive times, and tasting fees add up fast if you do not pace yourself. Eating well costs about what it does in a good Bay Area suburb.
▸ Is it worth bringing children?
More so than most wine regions. The redwood grove, the wildlife preserve, the river beaches in summer, the cartoon museum and a small steam railway in the town of Sonoma all work for families, and plenty of wineries have lawns, picnic tables and no objection to children. It is still a region organised around adults drinking, so build the day around one tasting rather than four.
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