USA Today has announced its annual 10Best Readers’ Choice Travel Awards, highlighting “the best of the best” in the U.S. in categories such as food and drink, lodging and things to do. This year, 14 Sonoma County businesses were among the winners, which were chosen by a panel of experts and then voted on by USA Today readers. Click through the above gallery to see the local winners.
Sofia Englund and Charlie Swanson contributed to this article.
USA Today has announced its annual 10Best Readers’ Choice Travel Awards, highlighting “the best of the best” in categories such as food and drink, lodging and things to do. Among the winners this year are two Sonoma County tasting rooms.
Sonoma’s Corner 103 and Glen Ellen’s Benziger Family Winery were named among the 10 Best Wine Tasting Rooms of 2023 — Benziger came in at No. 9 and Corner 103 at No. 2.
Nominees within this category, like other 10Best categories, were chosen by a panel of USA Today experts. Readers were then allowed to vote once per category, per day, for four weeks before the contest closed and the top 10 were announced. DAOU Vineyards in Paso Robles took the No. 1 spot this year. Napa Valley’s Turnbull Wine Cellars also made the list, at No. 7.
This is the fourth time Corner 103 makes USA Today’s Best Wine Tasting Room list. Last year, the tasting room on the Sonoma Plaza also took the No. 2 spot. It was named the best tasting room in the U.S. in both 2020 and 2021, topping the USA Today list.
“The staff provides an educational and comfortable tasting experience,” wrote USA Today about Corner 103, founded by Lloyd Davis in 2015. The downtown Sonoma tasting room remains outstanding for its tastings of limited-production wines, such as sparkling rosé, chardonnay, pinot noir, zinfandel and malbec.
Benziger Winery, a popular destination for its eco-friendly estate and its sustainable approach to winemaking, was named among the Best Winery Tours in 2022 by USA Today (it came in at No. 4 on that list).
This year, USA Today wrote that Benziger offers “a tasting experience that goes beyond sipping wine.” Wine expert Ziggy Eschliman described it as “nirvana” and said the tasting room is particularly enjoyable “thanks to a friendly and wine-savvy staff.” Eschliman also mentioned the tasting room’s gift selection that includes “fun cheese and food treats.”
Click through the above gallery for a peek at each tasting room and stay tuned for updates on more local winners of USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Travel Awards 2023.
There’s something extra delicious about dining with sweeping vineyard views and coastal expanses, especially when the ingredients are hyperlocal. We’ve found more than a dozen restaurants in Sonoma County where you can drink in the view and fill your belly and soul — plus two worth the drive to Marin. Click through the above gallery for details.
Sofia Englund, Dana Rebmann and Carey Sweet contributed to this article.
Summer is in full swing in Sonoma County and local hotels are making the season even better with new updates and offerings — from freshly renovated rooms and restaurants to decadent brunches and Moroccan dinners. Click through the above gallery for details and a peek at the properties.
We humans have a lot to learn from the laid-back sloth. With their sweet, friendly faces and their relaxed approach to life, these adorable tree-dwellers have truly mastered the art of taking it easy.
On August 19, fans of these fascinating creatures are invited to gather at Beaumont Farms in Petaluma for Hanging Out for Sloths, a fundraiser for the Sloth Conservation Foundation (SloCo).
Along with a sloth presentation and silent auction, the event will include locally produced beer, wine and bites, plus live performances by folk music artist Hannah Jern Miller, opera singer Lisa Tenorio, and piano and violin duo Leslie Garman and David Ewart. (Because sloths prefer to spend most of their time hanging motionless from tree branches in Central America and northern South America, the animals themselves will not be in attendance.)
The co-hosts behind this ultra-chill event are leading sloth expert Dr. Becky Cliffe, founder and director of SloCo, and Suzi Eszterhas, an award-winning wildlife photographer based in Petaluma.
Eszterhas became interested in the furry creatures 10 years ago, while shooting a story for BBC Wildlife magazine about a Costa Rican sloth orphanage. When a wild sloth happened to show up at the rescue property, she decided to switch gears and follow the newcomer instead. The organization paired her up with Cliffe, who was doing research on the property, and the duo spent three weeks together observing the female sloth and her baby in the jungle canopy.
“A lot of the time that you’re with sloths is sort of just hanging out, because they spend a lot of time sleeping,” Eszterhas says. While the sloths napped, “Becky regaled me with all these amazing, quirky things about sloths and got me to completely fall in love with them.”
Cliffe also told Eszterhas about the threats sloths face due to loss of habitat. This inspired the photographer to become a sloth conservationist.
“Costa Rica has this ‘green’ image but it’s really getting developed, particularly in the area around the Caribbean where Becky is working,” Eszterhas says. Once a sloth’s jungle habitat becomes fragmented by development, she explains, the animals are forced to come down from the treetops and crawl across roads—making them vulnerable to dogs and traffic.
SloCo aids the sloths by restoring and reconnecting rainforest habitat in Costa Rica, and installing simple rope bridges that allow sloths to safely travel across tree canopies.
Those who attend Hanging Out for Sloths will have a chance to learn more about sloth conservation efforts and hear stories about Eszterhas’ and Cliffe’s adventures tracking and photographing sloths in the jungles of Costa Rica and other countries in Latin America.
“Becky is one of the most entertaining people I know,” says Eszterhas. “She is incredibly quirky and passionate about sloths and sloth conservation. It’s really difficult to be around her and not get excited about sloths.
One of the event’s silent auction items will give the winning bidder the chance to visit wild sloths with Cliffe in Costa Rica. Attendees can also bid on Eszterhas’ wildlife photographs, local wine tasting packages, and more.
“When we first started talking about doing this event,” she says, “I asked Becky, ‘What if Sonoma County doesn’t love sloths as much as we do?’ And she said, ‘That’s impossible, everyone loves sloths.’ And we’re totally finding that people do.”
Hanging Out for Sloths, 3-6 p.m. August 19. Tickets are $75 and include food and drinks. All funds raised will support the Sloth Conservation Foundation. Beaumont Farms, 5580 Red Hill Road, Petaluma, slothconservation.org
If you did Saturday night right, says Kapu’s general manager and tiki cocktail expert, you won’t be hungry until 2 p.m. on Sunday.
At least that’s the idea behind the Petaluma bar and restaurant’s new Hangover Brunch. The Hawaiian-style brunch menu includes rib-sticking Kalua pork hash, a fried rice omelet, acai bowls, fried banana bread, Spam and egg musubi and poke bowls. Brunch starts at 2 p.m. on Sundays only and runs until the food is gone. You snooze, you lose. 132 Keller St., Petaluma; 707-559-3665 or on Instagram @kapu.bar.
Jalisco’s closes: Readers are mourning the loss of a humble but much-loved neighborhood taqueria, Jalisco’s Mexican Food in Santa Rosa. Located at 1800 Mendocino Ave., it was a family-friendly burrito spot frequented by SRJC-neighborhood residents since the 1980s. The owners could not be reached, and the telephone number to the restaurant has been disconnected.
Acre Pizza has opened a new location, at 8175 Gravenstein Highway in Cotati, after nearly a year of construction.
This is the third store for owner Steve DeCosse, who founded Acre Coffee. DeCosse sold his coffee business in 2020 to Rob Daly, who changed the name to Avid Coffee in 2021.
DeCosse spent several years developing the pizza concept, introducing crispy Detroit-style pizza and hiring pizzaiolo Alastair Hannmann to launch the pizza menu at The Barlow in Sebastopol.
DeCosse said he was inspired by a seminar on pizza making with gluten guru Peter Reinhart (founder of Brother Juniper’s Bread). Decosse went down a rabbit hole of pizza styles before landing on the famous New-York-style thin crust and the trendy Detroit style, a thick-crust pizza baked in a cast-iron square pan with caramelized Wisconsin “brick cheese” (a semisoft cheese sold in a brick shape) as a key component. Acre’s second location, at 1080 Petaluma Blvd. N. in Petaluma, serves the same menu.
Opening in Cotati was a dream for DeCosse, who hopes to continue growing the pizza business.
“I believe this store will become a great destination for our community. It has a large outside seating area with colorful picnic tables, and comfy booths inside. It also features both an interesting selection of on-tap beer and wine,” he said of the new restaurant.
DeCosse said he hopes to add more items soon to the menu of Detroit, New York and Sicilian pizzas, including a focaccia sandwich the baking team is still perfecting. The Cotati location is open 3 – 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. More details at acrepizza.com, 707-596-7802.
A three-bedroom, three-bathroom home at 105 G St. in Petaluma’s Waterfront District has hit the market for $1.8 million.
This burgeoning residential area along the Petaluma River, just south of downtown, features historic warehouses and newer residences, with a sprinkling of artisan shops and restaurants in between.
The modern home, designed by the late architect Warren J. Hedgpeth and built in 2004, has an unconventional layout: two three-story towers are connected via a breezeway with an outdoor patio at each level, including a rooftop terrace. There is an additional 132-square-foot studio next to the two-car garage.
The bottom floor has 380 square feet zoned for an office, a boutique or other business. The workspace includes an entry foyer, laundry nook, pantry storage and a full bathroom.
The 2,047 square feet of living space boasts design details like a three-sided glass fireplace, built-in shelves and plenty of tall windows that flood each room with light. Adding to the sense of spaciousness are 10-foot ceilings and a grand 18-foot cathedral ceiling in the breezeway and dining area.
Homeowners can leave the yard work behind and tend to just a few plants—towering bamboo, shrubs and climbing vines— that keep the patio areas lush and green. The home is designed for flexible and effortless living with easy access to Petaluma’s downtown.
Click through the above gallery for a peek inside the home at 105 G St.
For more information on this listing, contact Rob Sullivan, Vanguard Properties, 707-772-9171, RobSullivanHomes.com
The design world may have gone mad for sleek contemporary properties, but there is still a lot of charm to a historic home.
Healdsburg’s Matheson Street is one of several locations in Sonoma County that offer those interested in a historic home some inspiration. The neighborhood also has some newly constructed homes that have been designed in traditional styles to blend seamlessly with the surrounding historic properties.
One such home, located at 576 Matheson St., is now listed for sale with an asking price of $3,200,000. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom home was built in 2009 in craftsman style. It includes an auxiliary dwelling over the two-car garage.
The home, which has two levels, features charming design details typical of craftsman homes built in the early part of the 20th century, including a front porch, tapered columns and a gabled roof. Inside, there is built-in shelving in warm woods.
Amenities include a two-way fireplace shared between the living and dining rooms, three en-suite bathrooms, an outdoor fireplace and different levels of paved yard surrounded by mature gardens. The second unit has a kitchen, bedroom and full bathroom.
Click through the above gallery for a peek inside the home at 576 Matheson St.
For more information on this property, contact listing agents Robin Gordon, 707-291-7952, Cheryl Gordon, 707-484-9009, Caroline Johnson, 707-486-9923, The Agency, theagencyRE.com, 576mathesonstreet.com
The Sea Ranch Lodge, the centerpiece of Sonoma’s iconic modernist community, is welcoming overnight guests again following the recent opening of its redesigned guest rooms.
The debut of the 17 guest rooms marks the final phase of a multimillion-dollar renovation of the seaside property. The Lodge’s public spaces — a restaurant and bar, café, lounge and general store — reopened in October 2021 after a three-year closure.
The reimagined Lodge invites guests to slow down and take its modernist design and views of the rugged coastline. The property, which was built in 1968, aligns with the visionary Sea Ranch developers’ guiding ethos of “living lightly on the land;” their goal, when the coastal community was conceived in the 1960s, was to design dwellings that did not detract from the natural landscape or obstruct ocean views.
A courtyard, punctuated by a towering cypress tree, leads the way to the guest rooms, which are located in the property’s North Building. With the exception of two rooms that have been combined to create a meeting space, the original footprint of all of the guest rooms was preserved during the renovation.
“We really wanted to hold true to the original architecture, while bringing it into today’s world,” said Kristina Jetton, the lodge’s general manager.
No two rooms at The Sea Ranch Lodge are exactly the same, but the idea of “living lightly on the land” is expressed throughout each accommodation. From the cedar paneling on the walls to the oak flooring to the fir in the window sills, custom woodwork frames windswept meadows and churning seas.
San Francisco-based design collective NICOLEHOLLIS created the new look for the guest rooms and there’s a Bay Area connection to nearly everything in the redesign. Santa Cruz Woodworks built the headboards, closets and desks. Each room is decorated with handwoven textiles by Berkeley artist Jess Feury. Black and white photographs by Sea Ranch artist Arun Patel have been placed on shelves and walls. And Cloverdale’s Plank Coffee has created a custom Sea Ranch blend with roasted malt and molasses for guests to enjoy.
There are no television sets at The Sea Ranch Lodge. Instead, guests can take in the coastal views and look for birds, deer, whales and other wildlife through a pair of binoculars in each room. Each room also features beach bags and walking sticks; reminders to get outside and explore. Upon their return, guests can enjoy modern touches like heated bathroom floors and fireplaces that ignite with the touch of a button, as well as a complimentary bottle of Sonoma County wine.
Overnight guests can (and should) take advantage of the lodge’s robust programming schedule. Depending on the time of year, options range from morning yoga to trivia night to live jazz to workshops where they can learn new skills, like how to dye a scarf using locally foraged plants.
Click through the above gallery for a peek inside the reimagined Sea Ranch Lodge.
Rates start at $500 per night. Select ground floor guest rooms are pet-friendly with a $250 refundable deposit and $50 nightly fee. Advance notice is required. The lodge has two standard EV charging stations (four ports in total) that are available for an additional charge. 60 Sea Walk Drive, The Sea Ranch, 707-579-9777, thesearanchlodge.com
