San Franciso/Wine country trip

[missk82]

Hi! My husband and I are planning a 10th anniversary trip in September. We are planning on spending time in San Francisco, Napa/Sonoma, and possibly Lake Tahoe. If anyone has been, I would love restaurant and winery recommendations! Only considerations are: I'm gluten free, and we don't like seafood. Places that serve sugar free desserts are a bonus! We aren't penny pinching, but aren't looking for super expensive places either. Thanks!!

[Bonny]

May 1, 2019 9:24:07 GMT -5 missk82 said:

Hi! My husband and I are planning a 10th anniversary trip in September. We are planning on spending time in San Francisco, Napa/Sonoma, and possibly Lake Tahoe. If anyone has been, I would love restaurant and winery recommendations! Only considerations are: I'm gluten free, and we don't like seafood. Places that serve sugar free desserts are a bonus! We aren't penny pinching, but aren't looking for super expensive places either. Thanks!!

Wow, I'm surprised no one has responded to you yet.

How long are you planning to stay? That's a pretty ambitious itinerary, at least 10 days if you include Tahoe. Better for two weeks to account for travel days.

I live just south of San Francisco in San Mateo County on the Coast. Since you don't like Seafood I can't make any recommendations for City eating other than the Mona Lisa 3(?) in Little Italy which is down a couple doors from the Stinking Rose. We also like Pier 23 which is a low key restaurant on the Embarcadero. In general you will find plenty of gluten free choices in the area. I'd go to Trip Advisor or Yelp to find restaurant recommendations. There are a plethora of choices and you'll find something you like. Also your hotel clerk will have some local recommendations.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is to not rent a car while you are staying in San Francisco. It's hard to park and very expensive. I'd spend the money to pick a hotel near a BART station and walk or take BART or Muni where you need to go.

Although I was actually born in Napa all of the wine clubs we belong to are in the Dry Creek Area of Sonoma (near the town of Healdsburg). When planning your itinerey only plan on visiting 3 wineries per day. Remember the tastings combine to be 1+ glasses of wine. You will be too drunk to taste the difference after three wineries.

Continued...

We belong to Wilson, Dry Creek and Martorana. Unless you plan on joining a wine club I would skip Dry Creek Winery (it's a bit of a shame as they are really a pioneer for Dry Creek) and go to the Ferrari-Carano Winery for that over the top Tuscan experience. Beautiful gardens and I still like their Fume Blanc (aka Sauvignon Blanc). Martorana is the 180 opposite, with a low key profile, organic wines, all estate fruit, living roof, cool picnic area near the Dry Creek. If you order ahead they can arrange for a box lunch. Otherwise you either eat in Healdsburg or at the Dry Creek General Store.

You didn't say whether you would have kids with you. If you do it's well worth it to visit Coppola Winery. Very kid friendly and the museum stuff is fun. The wines are pretty good too. I'll buy the Claret in the grocery store at home.

The town of Sonoma itself is fun and well worth the visit but make it a separate day. Buena Vista Winery is one of the oldest wineries in California.

If you have a favorite wine from Napa then it might be worth the visit. As justme notes, tastings are really expensive and there are a lot of people and frankly a lot of people with attitude. Wines are meant to be shared with friends and family in my opinion and not a forum for one up man ship.

Tahoe: Tahoe is big and the towns have different vibes. Do some research and post where you might want to stay. Be forewarned that due to building restrictions in South Lake Tahoe, many of the motels are re-vamped 60s era motor motels. Some have managed better than others. If you decide on Incline Village (still one of my favorites) check out Airbnb or VRBO as there are a lot of ski condos that are in private rental service.

BTW I may be passing you on the road.  The last two Septembers I hiked a half of the Tahoe Rim Trail. This September I'm planning to hike the Tahoe to Yosemite Trail.

[justme]

I forget all the names of the restaurants I went to there, so I'm useless there. That big sourdough restaurant down on the water was good for a quick lunch though - I think there were several of them around town? The sourdough pizza I had was good and they had sourdough to go options too. 

I used the BART to get to my hotel and it was pretty easy. Also used the subway to get to Golden State Park. When I was playing tourist I used the street cars and cable cars to get around to pretty much everywhere I wanted to go - they have an all day pass that is definitely worth the money. I also enjoyed the ferry over to Sausalito. I did do a morning city tour bus my first day there - got me to all the tourist photo ops and got to figure out where I wanted to circle back to. 

But my favorite winery I visited was Andretti. Super delicious wine. I also visited the bigger Mondavi winery (the one with the more $$$ wines). Gorgeous scenery and it was really cool to see the operation, but honestly the wine was meh. Also visited the Ménage à Trois winery - it was pretty much overall meh. And I forget the name of the last one we visited, tour guide said the fountain out front was the "most photographed spot in Napa" I kind of think he was full of it (not that great of a fountain) but if he was right then you can figure out what winery. It was an old winery and rather large. The building was pretty cool, but for the price of what they had for tastings I thought it was over priced. I went in April and Andretti had a deal going on their wine and I bought 3 bottles home. Wish I could find it in a store because I would buy it again -- their go kart venues also have a version of their wine, a lower price point than what I got from the winery but still damn good. If it was closer to my house those bartenders would be friends with me by now. lol

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

It has been ages since I have been on a winery tour in CA.  However, on a recent trip to South Africa, we hired a driver to haul us from winery to winery.  Yeah, we could have driven ourselves but that would mean that one of us had to restrict our drinking.