We were picked up promptly by Roman at our designated spot, and after finding that he had 3 extra French passengers who had gotten on the wrong tour bus, he got them to a spot where they could be picked up by their tour. Roman kept up a lively and humorous commentary all the way to Muir Woods, and gave us a full hour and 15 minutes to commune with the trees.
Roman had arranged the order of visits to go to the furthest winery first — in order to spend less time in traffic overall. So after Muir Woods, we first drove all the way to the farthest winery, Kiue Hoang winery in Napa. The wine was excellent and the hostess explained a lot about growing and harvesting the grapes, making it interesting. I only wish we could have stayed longer, as they had many comfy couches and a beautiful view!
We got going quickly though, as Roman knew if we didn’t get to the Sonoma square before the bulk of the tourist busses, we would have a harder time getting lunch. The square had many nice restaurants to choose from, at several price points.
This is the one thing I would do differently! We had reserved the gourmet lunch. The lunch was served promptly at the Plaza Bistro with impeccable service, and was delicious, but here’s the thing: the wine pairings. They were lovely, but I found that after the morning tasting and 3 glasses of wine at lunch, I had no more capacity for wine for the afternoon tastings! I recommend that you consider how much wine you can comfortably drink before signing up for the gourmet 3 course lunch with wine-pairings!
After lunch, we visited the Mayo family winery in Sonoma Valley where the humorous hostess showed us their de-stemmer, oak barrels and steel containers and talked more about the processing aspects of the wine business.
Our last stop was at the Trek winery in Marin County, which buys grapes from all over and processes them into a wide variety of wines. They also brew beer, for those seeking a little variety!
Overall, we had a wonderful day and highly recommend this tour!