Wine country – Sonoma, Napa Valley

Odometer: 103,655
07:00 we slowly get up and ready to explore Sonoma and Napa Valleys. The wineries are lines up basically one after the other. The first winery we stop at 10:00 is Kenwood. We are offered some wine to taste but for us it’s a bit too early to start drinking, so we just look around and pass on down Sonoma Valley. We drive through Sonoma and Napa and then up again on Napa Valley. To our right we see a new, impressive building. The tag says ‘Opus Winery’ as we later find out it belongs to Mondavi. Our next stop is actually the Mondavi Winery where we take a tour and taste some wine. Mondavi produces only the more exclusive wines in Napa Valley where an acre cost up to half a million dollars compared to Central Valley where it’s only about 5000 USD. Mondavi just turned 90 in June this year and it is very clear that he was one of the pioneers in Napa Valley. He definitely brought a lot of wealth into the valley. Meanwhile there are approx. 280 wineries in Napa Valley and about 850 all over California. Mondavi was the first US winery focusing on quality instead of quantity.

In the afternoon we return to the same motel in Santa Rosa we spent last night and, after a nap, have dinner at Sizzler.