Sonoma
Sonoma is the historic anchor of California wine country — the place where Father Junípero Serra established the northernmost mission in 1823, where the Bear Flag was raised in 1846, and where Agoston Haraszthy planted the cuttings that became Buena Vista, the state's first commercial winery, in 1857. The Plaza is still the largest in California, eight acres of grass and bandstand surrounded by adobe-fronted restaurants, tasting rooms, and shops that have been operating since the Coolidge administration.
Hospitality in Sonoma is more lived-in than Healdsburg's polish — historic inns like the Sonoma Hotel and El Dorado Hotel face the Plaza directly, while MacArthur Place sits a few blocks away in a Victorian estate, and the Lodge at Sonoma anchors the resort tier on the edge of town. From any of them, Cornerstone, Gundlach Bundschu, and Buena Vista are within fifteen minutes. The Sonoma Valley AVA stretches north toward Glen Ellen and Kenwood — a single drivable spine that lets a guest taste the whole valley in a long afternoon.
