Ding! Ding! Here comes the Wine Trolley!

We decided that it would be smart to let someone else drive us to wineries, so we booked two spots on the Sonoma Valley Wine Trolley today. We started with a good breakfast at our hotel (eggs Benedict for Shannon because she’s a creature of habit and some amazing street tacos for Jason with eggs, chorizo and avocado, and a jalapeño cheddar scone.)

We picked up the trolley at the Sonoma Square after a minor issue with finding the free public parking. (Oh! There’s EAST First street and WEST First street,  both bordering the square.) on our walk to the trolley pick up site, we came across our first statue, commemorating the raising of the Bear Flag. Our trolley driver told us that there were some men living in the mountains who referred to themselves as “Bears” and they planted the flag and declared independence from Mexico for California. Not too much later, the US claimed California.

Our first winery stop was B. R. Cohn, founded by the manager of the Doobie Brothers. There were no Michael McDonald sightings but we got to pick a couple grapes and taste them. Wine grapes are small!! 

We made some friends with a couple from Massachusetts, tried some wine and admired the gorgeous view out back.

 

Stop number 2 was at a tasting room for VJB Cellars. It was a beautiful setting.  We had a lovely outdoor lunch and chatted with a couple on their honeymoon and some ladies from Michigan. The gelato dessert was our favorite part. Shannon got lemon custard with bits of golden Oreos sprinkled in. Jason had peanut butter fudge.

Shannon got to ring the bell to call everyone back to the trolley (and might have been too enthusiastic about it) and we were off to our third stop, Mayo Family Winery. 

The Mayo tasting started with bubbles (bonus!) and was so informative. Shannon lost Jason briefly when he disappeared studying wine barrels.  We learned all kinds of cool things like there are 300 bottles of wine in a barrel and they prefer French Oak for the barrels, though they do sometimes use Hungarian Oak. We ended the visit with a port. 

The final stop was at Seamus, which is totally a place where we would hang out. They don’t grow their own grapes, they purchase grapes from local growers and make wines. (There was even a wine named Shannon!) The furniture is all made of wine barrels. It was a really cool place. While there we chatted with a woman from Oklahoma who has relatives in Morton. Small world!

On the way back to the square, there was much talk about football (we had fans from everywhere: Patriots, Lions, Bills, Commanders). It was a good day. Beautiful weather. We’d recommend it!

For dinner, we hit a local spot: Mary’s Pizza Shack. We ate outside under a giant magnolia tree and watched the shadows climb the mountain as the sun set.