I love wine country!

While I love the city of San Francisco, I keep being tempted to drive the hour and a half north to wine country. While both Napa and Sonoma are fantastic, I think I like Sonoma a little more. It's a little less touristy and a little more scenic. There's a couple wineries in the Sonoma Valley, a little north of the town of Sonoma, that are quite fun.

The first is Chateau St. Jean. I'd actually had wine from here before I moved to California. The estate is a white French-style chateau right at the base of a mountain. After turning of the highway, you go down a long driveway through fields of grape vines. Right in front of the chateau is an area to picnic, strung up with white paper lanterns from palm tree to palm tree.There's a main building, with the larger wine tasting. There's a shop with all the wine and kitchen paraphernalia you can imagine. There's a long bar, where you can do the wine tasting of two of their whites and three reds. You can sample all of their olive oils, vinegars and mustards. If you like the wine, you can buy a bottle to picnic with. There's also a counter where you can get sandwiches, olives, meats, crackers ad cheeses. There's a purple haze chevre that I love. You can also go to the smaller area and sample the fancier estate wines for a little more cost.

Nearby there's also the Kunde Winery. There's an area outside by a pond and fountain to enjoy a bottle of wine. The main building is mostly composed of a long bar, where you can taste 3 whites and 3 reds fir $10. If you want to sit on the leather couches while doing a tasting, it's $20. If you want to taste these wines at the top of the mountain, you can do that too for $30. There's a free cave tour, where you can go see where the barrels are stored. For you fans of the TV show, "The Bachelor," they've filmed some private dinner dates down in the cave tunnels.

Anyway, if you're looking for a place to visit a couple good wineries, take a drive in Sonoma down Highway 12. But for those of you new to this, like me, tastings usually only go until 4:30pm so start your day early!