Building an itinerary for Aug. Sonoma/Napa trip -- looking for help

[dananne]

I'll tell you what -- this has really been a new experience. There is just no way to fit in everything we want to do in Sonoma and Napa in just one week. Absolutely impossible. We could fill a week in each and still leave without tasting everything we'd like. Totally different experience than what we're used to. In Oregon, in the Northern Willamette Valley, we've got maybe 30 places to choose from. Pair it down to maybe 15, and we're off and running. We're spending a few days in Walla Walla? Well, eliminate the places that either aren't open on the days we're visiting, or not open at all, and we can pair the list down to maybe a dozen places to explore. Prosser? A few days can handle the whole valley from Red Mountain to Zillah and beyond. But this is just unreal. The sheer numbers of places are incredible. Plus, we really don't have a full week to explore the area. We arrive late on Friday night. On Saturday, we've got a wedding to attend. Sunday we've set aside for exploring San Francisco and attending the Family Winemakers of California event at the Fort Mason Center (some places we're considering visiting are at the event, so it should help us shorten our list). So, we're looking at Monday through Friday in wine country, as we leave the following Saturday -- it's a lot to try and squeeze into 5 real days. Factor in the special appointment tours, and we've come to the realization that our initial list is almost laughable in extent. We'll never get to all of them. So, we'll happily use it as a loose guide, and try and hit the ones that are open as we come across them. Really, aside from the special tours, everything else is gravy. It won't break my heart to have to skip a few. Save some for the next trip!

Regarding the list, it hasn't changed a whole lot. We had been waiting on the Siduri and Merry Edwards appointments to be set before moving on to Acorn and/or Meitz. After that, we'll likely not schedule any other visits, as it would get to be too much to allow any spontaneous exploring. So, places like Inman Family Vineyards will likely be dropped this go-round. We added Robledo to the loose agenda, which seemed to be an interesting Mexican-American winery. Lately, we've been looking more at non-wine things to do (mostly in the mornings, as canoeing down the Russian River may be a bit too adventurous for us following several tasting visits).