Location: Santa Rosa Area
Attractions: Korbel, Martin Ray, Sonoma-Cutrer, Russian River Brewing Company – New Windsor, La Rosa Tequileria & Grille, Russian River Brewing Company – Santa Rosa

Day four of our wine country adventure took us right down the road from where we were staying; to the Korbel winery. The day was again rainy and damp so we shuffled into the old train station that was part of their property and waited for our tour guide. The place had a great story of 3 Czechoslovak brothers that came to America, decided to become entrepreneurs, starting with cigar boxes, and finally landed on making champagne.

Fun fact – Most places that make a bubbly wine can’t call their product champagne because a while back, Europe said champagne is only ‘champagne’ if it comes from the Champagne region of France. Korbel was grandfathered in to being able to carry the name, but it is required that they call it California Champagne.

We toured the facility and saw tons of cool artifacts and learned of their old winery techniques. They saved a lot of cool, old things and the tour had a great museum feel. I thought it was pretty interesting to see how a massive operation such as this was ran back in the early 1900’s (Korbel was founded in 1882). The huge barrels and large inventory of bottles are preserved so visitors can learn about the process. It was one gentleman’s full-time job to just go into the cellar and turn each wine bottle an 1/8 of a turn each day and he did this by candle light.

Towards the end, they showcased a large champagne glass and one of the worlds largest bottles of champagne. I believe at the time, it was the largest, and it was created to celebrate the turn of the century back in 2000. A book of signatures from people who attended the party at Times Square to watch the ball drop was placed behind the huge bottle. Once we finished the tour, we had some samples and then ate a little at their cafe while we sipped on some mimosas.

On our way to Sonoma-Cutrer, we stopped at the Martin Ray winery. This place had the best wine in my opinion. I’m not a big wine drinker, so I’m not sure what made it good, but I really liked it. We sat and sampled wine and chatted up the gentleman serving us. The rain seemed to let up a bit, so we went exploring around the beautiful property. I guess they used to have chickens all around there, and it was sort of part of their trademark, but when we were they the chickens were gone. We did find the bocce court and played for a while as we drank from a bottle that we purchased. It was the only time we purchased a bottle after tasting… I told you, it was good!

Next on the agenda was Sonoma-Cutrer. We tasted wine and checked out the croquet fields. This place was cool, but I really liked Martin Ray and after that experience, this just seemed a bit watered down. By the time we left, the wine was really flowing through the ole blood stream, so we took some PG-13 rated pictures of the Sonoma-Cutrer garden area on our way to the Russian River Brewing Company in New Windsor.

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We loved this brewery. It was a brand new building with a cool vibe and great brews. We had a few here as we sat next to their fireplace and dried out. A good buddy of mine randomly happened to be in the Sonoma area at the same time and we made dinner plans in Santa Rosa. After we had a couple of great tasting beers and bought some souvenirs, we headed to La Rosa Tequileria & Grille for some good food. It was great to see my buddy from high school and we had a great meal. After our meal, we didn’t want the night to end quite yet, so we went with them to Russian River at the Santa Rosa location. This was more of a dark pub scene but we bellied up to the bar and made friends with some locals and passed the time with some good conversation.

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Once we had our fill of beer, we needed to make a stop at the local Target. There was a shortage of underwear packed by one of our travel partners and we needed to pick up some more for the sake of comfort and cleanliness. Our travel buddy decided that he needed a handicap cart for the shopping trip and I can honestly say that I haven’t laughed so hard in years. Tears. Sore abdomen. Trouble breathing. It was so much fun it hurt! Jill found an Irish onesie and decided to try it on. It was a trip to Target I’ll never forget.

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Once back to our house, I couldn’t drink another ounce of alcohol. It was time for bed to sleep off our buzz. The next day was a travel day.