Fall

Pour + Explore is Sonoma County Vintners' traveling tasting series. Each evening lands at a different host winery and gathers more than twenty-five Sonoma County producers around a single theme, a grape, a style or a group of appellations, for a walk-around tasting with light appetizers. The series is produced with sommelier Christopher Sawyer. Keller Estate hosts an evening devoted to the Petaluma Gap and the West Sonoma Coast, and Gloria Ferrer has closed recent seasons with a night of sparkling wine.

The Harvest Wine Trail is Wine Road's Saturday in the middle of crush. A single ticket opens the tasting rooms of about twenty member wineries spread across the Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River valleys, and you plot your own course between them. There is no fixed itinerary and no host to follow: pick a valley, pick a handful of doors, and taste what each winery has chosen to pour that day. It is one of Wine Road's seasonal wine trails, and this one is timed for harvest, when picking and crush are under way across northern Sonoma County.

The Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival celebrates the harvest on the historic Sonoma Plaza each September. The daytime festival is free: a morning Blessing of the Grapes, the barefoot Historic Grape Stomp, a 5K fun run, live music, a wine garden and activities for kids.

The ticketed side brings a long-table Harvest Dinner on the Plaza and the Sonoma Valley Grand Tasting in the old Sonoma Barracks, where more than forty valley wineries pour, from Gundlach Bundschu and Buena Vista to Anaba.

The Sonoma County Harvest Fair celebrates the county's farms, food and makers, and its wine side is a professional competition for wines made from Sonoma County grapes. More than nine hundred wines are entered and judged for Gold, Double Gold and Best of Class medals. It all comes together at an evening gala at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, where the medal winners pour, local restaurants and caterers serve savory bites, and the three Sweepstakes wines are announced live on stage.

Healdsburg Crush is a harvest-season Sunday tasting that raises money for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma-Marin. More than sixty producers set up for an open-air, walk-around afternoon at Bacchus Landing in Healdsburg, pouring Pinot Noir, sparkling wine and Chardonnay. A VIP ticket opens the gates an hour before general admission, for a quieter first pass at the tables. Proceeds go to the clubs' programs for young people across Sonoma and Marin counties.

Keller Estate's Día de los Muertos fiesta is an evening of remembrance at the family winery in the Petaluma Gap. The winery plaza is dressed as a Mexican pueblo, with live traditional music and Mexican cuisine served alongside Keller Estate wines. At its heart stands a community ofrenda: guests are invited to bring photographs of loved ones who have died to place on the shared altar, and the winery provides the frames. It is a ticketed gathering held each autumn around the Day of the Dead, running from late afternoon into the evening.

The Wine & Food Affair is Wine Road's November weekend of pairings. Across Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley and the Russian River, each participating winery sets a featured dish beside its wines, so every stop is a plate and a pour rather than a tasting bar alone. You choose a check-in winery when you buy, collect a glass and a wristband there, and plan your own route for both days. The roster runs to dozens of wineries, from ACTA and J. Rickards in Alexander Valley to Mazzocco in Dry Creek and DeLoach on the Russian River.

The night Sonoma switches on the holidays. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the town gathers on the historic Sonoma Plaza for local music and dance, food trucks, hot cocoa and cookies, and wine and beer, all leading up to the moment thousands of lights blink on across the square's trees.

The Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau presents the evening, which begins at 5 p.m. Once lit, the Plaza glows every night through the holiday season.

After dark on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the working machines of Sonoma Valley take a holiday lap. Vineyard tractors, farm trucks, grape harvesters and festive trailers, strung with lights and driven by local vintners, growers and neighbors, roll slowly around the historic Sonoma Plaza.

The Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance presents the parade with the City of Sonoma.

The Springs' own market brings fresh produce and a lively food scene to Boyes Hot Springs — a warm, working-neighborhood market that reflects the area's strong Latino community, just up the highway from the Sonoma Plaza.

On Saturday afternoons from May to November, Walnut Park in downtown Petaluma hosts a certified farmers' market from 2 to 5pm. Local farms bring produce, eggs and honey, alongside meats and fish, artisan cheese and bread, canned goods, prepared food and handmade crafts, all set out under the trees of a small town square at Fourth and D streets.

It is run by Agricultural Community Events, the nonprofit that also manages Petaluma's year-round East Side market.

At the county's northern edge, Cloverdale's certified farmers' market sets up on Sunday mornings, 9:30am to 1pm, from April through November on West 2nd Street in the old downtown. It brings together local farmers, food purveyors and craftspeople, and it is run by the nonprofit behind the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market, the oldest in Sonoma County.

The scale is small and the pace unhurried: a Sunday errand that turns into a stroll through a quiet main street.

Sunday mornings from April into early December, the Windsor Town Green in Old Downtown Windsor fills with the Windsor Certified Farmers Market. Growers bring fruit, vegetables, meats, fish, honey and eggs; food makers add bread, cheese and preserves; local artists fill out the rows. In summer the market also runs on Thursday evenings, as part of the Summer Nights on the Green concert series. The market sets up at McClelland Drive and Market Street, on the green at the center of town.

The Healdsburg Farmers' Market is one of the oldest certified markets in California, and it now has a home of its own: the Foley Family Community Pavilion on North Street, a short walk from the Plaza. The Saturday market runs 8:30am to noon from April to December, and a Tuesday market runs 9am to 1pm from May through September. Both are run by the nonprofit Healdsburg Certified Farmers' Market.