First stop was Wooden Valley , a family winery with affordable and quite good wine. We came away with some of the Chardonnay, a buttery, oaky white and the Sauvignon Blanc, which is much greener and lighter, putting me in mind of spring.
Next stop, The Vintage Cafe on the recommendation of the nice lady at Wooden Valley.
The food was delicious, the service fast and friendly and the prices fair. Craig really enjoyed his plate of Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken.
Across from the cafe is this towing business with a gold statue of what we both assumed must be Chief Mankas watching over the parking lot.
We visited the Ledgewood Creek winery, which is beautifully situated in the middle of the valley and surrounded by fields of wild mustard in bright yellow bloom. They have 38 large nest boxes on the site for the local barn owls, who pay rent by keeping the rodent population in check. They also had a very nice Mediterranean style garden that we strolled through getting some good ideas for our own backyard in progress. I liked the 2005 Syrah, Craig didn't care for any of them too much. Overall, this was a very relaxing place to visit.
Last stop was to the Suisun Valley Wine Cooperative, or Co-Op as everyone else referred to it. They had an impressively large selection of wine for free tasting as this one tasting room is a cooperative venture for six local wineries. At this point both Craig and I were feeling a bit light headed, so we had to be very selective in our choices. This winery turned out to have what we both agreed were the best wines of the day, a Winterhawk Winery 2007 Petite Syrah (my favorite varietal grape) and a fabulous Sunset Cellars 2004 Barbera, an Italian varietal. The Barbera knocked both our socks off, it is GOOD. Needless to say, we went home with a bottle of each.
To cap off this little adventure we conducted a brief exploration of the area and Craig determined that while quite lovely to look at this Magnolia did not have a lovely fragrance to match it's beauty. 