The California wine pilgrim should go first to Sonoma, which has all the atmosphere of a little wine capital. Sonoma's tree shaded square, with his old mission buildings and barracks, its stone-built City Hall and ornate Sebastiani Theatre, is faintly Ruritanian in style, and thickly layered with history.
Sonoma Valley is the birthplace of the California wine industry and is home to some of the earliest
vineyards and wineries in the state, some of which survived the phylloxera epidemic of the 1870s and the impact of Prohibition in the 1920s. Its wineries are generally small and are protected by the US federal government's Sonoma Valley and Carneros appellations.
The Napa Valley is the symbol, as well as the center of the top-quality wine industry in the US. Its wines, winemakers and the idyllic Golden Age atmosphere fill it from one green hillside to the next. Napa Valley captures the imagination and stays in the memory. Most of its vineyards lie on the nearly flat floor;
broken here and there by a wooded knolls rising
several hundred feet. The vineyards creep up either side of the valley, dotted with forests of oak, maple, and redwood; giving way, to amphitheaters of the vineyards, even high up in the mountains.
Napa Valley is one of the world's premier
destinations, where you'll enjoy mild climate
throughout most of the year, breathtaking
agricultural and natural scenery, first-class dining (some of the finest in the world!), unique shopping, cultural events and festivals.
