JANUARY THROUGH APRIL
Whale Watching: In January, migrating gray whales head south from their feeding grounds in the frigid waters near Alaska to the subtropical waters of the lagoons and bays of Baja California. On weekends, whale fans gather at Bodega Head for a chance to see the majestic sea mammals. Once they arrive in the south, the whales mate and nurse their young. By April, pairs of cows and calves, which tend to travel closer to shore, can be spotted heading back north again.
Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, 707-869-9177, stewardsofthecoastandredwoods.org

There aren’t many places in the world where winter road-trip options include snow, coast and a cosmopolitan city. But here we are, in the epicenter of optimal destinations, each one marked by equal parts physical beauty, smart sophistication and vibrant food scene. Take a break during Sonoma’s traditional quiet time and recharge in a new setting.

Marin Coast

Less than an hour’s drive from Santa Rosa, the coastline along Marin’s Point Reyes National Seashore is among the most beautiful in the world, dotted with beaches that are accessible, and some less so. The hillsides in wintertime are brilliantly verdant, and there are many warm, cozy corners in which to curl up against the storms. Dramatic trails and beaches are perfect places to feel nature’s moods.

The coastal region’s bounty of food and drink is as impressive as its beauty. The Point Reyes area sustains cows, sheep and goats for milk and cheese, grass-fed beef, fish and oysters, and several farmers markets’ worth of cool-climate produce. Coastal Marin is also viticulturally viable, with small plots of mostly Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines. Point Reyes makes an ideal setting for a multiday or overnight stay organized around the one-road towns of Olema and Point Reyes Station, and the outcrops of Inverness and Marshall, set along Tomales Bay.

Where to Go:

Blue Waters Kayaking
Tomales Bay is ideal for kayaking, offering several places to launch, including at Nick’s Cove (officially known as the Miller County Park Boat Launch). Fifteen miles long, the bay offers plenty of room to paddle without having to tackle rough, open ocean. Blue Waters rents kayaks and standup paddleboards, and leads morning, sunset and full-moon paddle tours launching from Marshall and Inverness. Rentals start at $50, tours at $65.
60 Fourth St., Suite C, Point Reyes Station, 415-669-2600, bwkayak.com

Osteria Stellina
Located on the main drag in Point Reyes Station, Osteria Stellina serves gourmet Italian dishes with a Marin twist; freshly harvested ingredients include Drake’s Bay oysters, Bellwether Farms ricotta, Marshall Farm honey and Stellina farm baby lettuce. The zuppa del giorno (soup of the day) is a wintertime staple; so are the grilled cheese sandwiches on sourdough. Mains in winter focus on comforting Niman Ranch osso buco, braised chicken and Rossotti Ranch braised goat. The wine list reflects the best of Italy and Northern California.
11285 Highway 1, Point Reyes Station, 415-663-9988, osteriastellina.com

Sir and Star at The Olema
Within The Olema Inn, this restaurant represents the rebirth of Margaret Grade and chef Daniel DeLong, who for many years were the force behind Manka’s restaurant in Inverness before it burned down. They continue to operate Manka’s as a lodge. Anyone who had the exquisite experience of dining at Manka’s will find renewed hope here, where the inspiration for farm-fresh and foraged food continues as brilliantly as ever. Dinner only, Wednesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., with Saturday nights focused on a leisurely meal of small courses. Reservations encouraged.
10000 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Olema, 415-663-1034, sirandstar.com

Manka’s Inverness Lodge
The lodge, which survived a 2006 fire that claimed Manka’s destination restaurant, remains among the most luxurious and quietly private places to stay. Breakfast is included, the well-appointed cabins have fireplaces and hot tubs, and the town of Inverness and the wild beaches of Point Reyes are nearby. Rates start at $215.
30 Callendar Way, Inverness, 415-669-1034, mankas.com

Hog Island Oyster Co.
The Boat, Hog Island’s on-site oyster bar, offers shucked oysters, raw and cooked, cheese, bread, beer and wine, with no reservations required. What will require a reservation is a picnic spot of one’s own for DIY shucking, complete with table, grill and tools. BYOB is fine, and there are plenty of beverages for sale at The Boat, including Marooned On Hog Island Oyster Stout. Oysters and shellfish are also sold to go.
20215 Highway 1, Marshall, 415-663-9218, hogislandoysters.com

Marin Sun Farms Butcher Shop and Restaurant
This sustainable meat purveyor, which sells at farmers’ markets throughout the Bay Area, is a great place to have a meal or purchase meat, eggs and charcuterie, and beef and chicken stocks. The menu is, of course, meat-obsessed, offering steaks, chops and burgers, including a goat burger with Laura Chenel Chèvre cheese. Open Thursday through Monday for lunch and sometimes dinner.
10905 Highway 1, Point Reyes Station, 415-663-1800, marinsunfarms.com

Cowgirl Creamery at Tomales Bay Foods
World-famous Cowgirl Creamery originally made all of its cheeses in this restored hay barn. Now it’s a shop for all things delicious, including, of course, the best selection of cheeses in town, from America and abroad. Local breads, sandwiches, salads and a rare collection of local wines complete the picture.
80 Fourth St., Point Reyes Station, 415-663-9335, cowgirlcreamery.com

Nick’s Cove
A waterside place to stay and eat, Nick’s is a series of cottages on stilts on Tomales Bay and below the road. There’s a cozy gourmet restaurant, oyster bar and watering hole within walking distance that’s reason alone to make the drive. With the same sustainable mentality that marks so much of Marin, Nick’s food is in keeping with the natural surroundings, the menu stocked with crab mac and cheese, crab cakes, crab Louis, crab risotto, clam chowder and plenty of oysters. Lodging rates start at just above $200 and are a better deal in winter, especially midweek.
23240 Highway 1, Marshall, 415-663-1033, nickscove.com

San Francisco

To be so close to such an urbane, food-oriented city is a blessing in Sonoma, and San Francisco can feel more like a part of our extended backyard than a separate place of its own. There is a defined thoroughfare between the two in terms of ingredients and frame of mind. Chefs, bartenders and wine buyers love having the connection to Sonoma, and Sonoma to them.

Whether it’s cozying up to a romantic Manhattan in a dark, timeless bar, hanging onto an F-line streetcar in the dark of a winter’s evening, or foraying into the shops and eateries that contribute to the national conversation on what constitutes inventive, a trip to the city is sure to open all the senses and remind that what is grown and harvested in Sonoma adds substantially to the fabric of a world-class, much-loved city.

Where to Go:

Dandelion Chocolate
Dandelion is San Francisco’s newest artisan chocolate maker, continuing a lineage that runs through Ghirardelli, Guittard and Recchiuti. From its hipster-detailed Mission District outpost, it makes the bars in full view of visitors, from melting to wrapping, with plenty of the finished product for sale, plus roasted cocoa beans and decadent baked goods.
740 Valencia St., San Francisco, 415-349-0942, dandelionchocolate.com

Bi-Rite Market and Bi-Rite Creamery & Bakeshop
One of the early pioneers of artisan food supplies, Bi-Rite in the Mission District is a cool place to browse and find picnic items and other goods to take home. It’s so devoted to new discoveries that the store also organizes farm tours (it operates its own organic farms in Sonoma, Placerville and San Francisco), classes and tastings. Committed to creating community as much as nourishing through food, Bi-Rite maintains a second San Francisco store (550 Divisadero, 415-551-7900) and two Creamery & Bakeshops, near both of its markets.
3639 18th St., San Francisco, 415-241-9760, biritemarket.com; 3692 18th St., San Francisco, 415-626-5600, biritecreamery.com

Ferry Building Marketplace
This Embarcadero emporium offers all one could possibly want to eat, with outposts such as Hog Island Oyster Co., Cowgirl Creamery, McEvoy Ranch Olive Oil and Gott’s Roadside. It’s also a place to discover new wines at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, where food can be brought in to enjoy alongside a rotating selection of wines by the glass or bottle; vintner nights are frequent.
One Ferry Building, San Francisco, 415-983-8030, ferrybuildingmarketplace.com

Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Offering modern elegance in the heart of the Financial District, an easy walk to Chinatown, North Beach and the Embarcadero, the Mandarin Oriental boasts luxurious rooms with views of the bay or bridges. It’s also a must-stop for gin lovers; the gin and tonic-obsessed Bar at Brasserie S & P is a slice of heaven for the cocktail-erati. Rates start at $395.
222 Sansome St., San Francisco, 415-276-9888, mandarinoriental.com/sanfrancisco

SPQR
The second restaurant of the team that launched A16, SPQR in the Fillmore is sure to steal your heart if it hasn’t already; the Italian-inspired food is rendered in poetically perfect ways. Chef Matthew Accarrino deserves every accolade bestowed and many more. Do everything possible to order the smoked fettuccine with sea urchin, smoked bacon and soft quail egg, paired with something adventurous from owner Shelley Lindgren’s Italian wine list.
1911 Fillmore St., San Francisco, 415-771-7779, spqrsf.com

Tartine Bakery & Café
Another stalwart of the city’s rigorous attention to artisan detail, Tartine crafts outstanding bread and baked goods. Co-owner and baker Chad Robertson is a hero to many. Fresh-baked bread is available daily after 4:30 p.m., in time for dinner or overnight wrapping for the next day’s best-ever toast. The on-site café serves pastries, hot-pressed sandwiches and quiche, along with Four Barrel coffee and Niman Ranch meats. Lines out the door are routine.
600 Guerrero St., San Francisco, 415-487-2600, tartinebakery.com

Bar Agricole
South of Market, near the Slim’s nightclub owned by musician and Napa Valley vintner Boz Scaggs, Bar Agricole does food and booze equally well, with an emphasis on classic cocktails with an artisan twist. This means a drink like Ti Punch is made from rhum agricole, a species of rum made from fresh-pressed sugarcane instead of molasses, and meant to reflect the sugarcane’s terroir, much as wine shows its provenance.
355 11th St., San Francisco, 415-355-9400, baragricole.com

House of Air
Indulge your inner aerialist at this giant warehouse at the Presidio’s Chrissy Field, devoted to getting airborne via trampoline. Come just to bounce, or for workout classes, coaching sessions on how to master Olympic-level tuck jumps and pikes, better maneuver on skis and snowboards, or simply to release workweek tension through a game of trampoline dodgeball. Sessions start at $13.
926 Mason St., San Francisco, 415-345-9675, houseofair.com

Lake Tahoe

The ski slopes around Lake Tahoe are such an irresistible draw for Bay Area residents that they’ll happily sit in traffic for hours, slog on chains and tempt the fates of road closures, just to get in a day or two of snowboarding or skiing. But that’s not the only reason so many love Tahoe. It’s also because the year-round resort knows a thing or two about living the good life, offering adrenaline junkies a chance to slow down and refuel around a meal.

Where to Go:

The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe
Yes, it’s fancy and over-the-top luxurious, but the Ritz-Carlton in North Lake Tahoe also has as ace up its sleeve: Manzanita. The destination restaurant has a chef’s table for up to eight guests, who experience a “mountain-inspired California cuisine” tasting menu that’s crazy-good. In addition to a spa, hiking trails, fishing, children’s programs and championship golf, a new Backyard Bar & BBQ is being built. Rates start at $369.
13031 Ritz-Carlton Highlands Court, Truckee, 530-562-3000, ritzcarlton.com/en/properties/laketahoe

The Pour House
To stock up on fine wines, look no farther than this retail shop packed with bottles from the Old World and New, including Pinot Noirs from Saintsbury and Flowers, and selections from the nearby Sierra Foothills, such as the Donkey & Goat Five Thirteen Red Wine Blend from El Dorado. The store also carries collectibles it categorizes as “You Wish!” comprised of library wines such as the 1997 Opus One Cabernet blend. Best of all, the shop does daily tastings of two reds and two whites and will help with parties.
10075 Jibboom St., Truckee, 530-550-9664, thepourhousetruckee.com

Wilderness Adventures Dog Sled Tours
Admire the graceful choreography and poetic paw work of a team of eight to 12 huskies pulling a sled through the snowy mountains on this one-hour tour. Daily daytime and sunset tours are available, weather permitting, winter through spring, leaving from the Resort at Squaw Creek. Up to two adults and two children typically fit per sled. Rates start at $110 per person.
400 Squaw Creek Road, Olympic Valley, 530-550-8133, tahoedogsledtours.com

Petra
In the Village at Northstar, Petra is food, wine and people in equal proportions, featuring some 150 wine selections, winemaker dinners and happy hours daily from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (two glasses of wine plus cheese for $20). The restaurant’s menu is organized around cheese, charcuterie and tapas.
3001 North Village Drive, Truckee, 530-562-0600, teloswine.com

PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn
The PlumpJack Café at Squaw Valley continues where the beloved San Francisco institution left off, creating sumptuous plates for lunch and dinner that are meant to be enjoyed with wine, which is sold at retail prices. It’s a fun place with seasonal wine dinners a prominent part of the mix. On weekends, stay for Sunday Bloody Sunday, when Bloody Marys (Asian- and Southern-inspired) take on new meaning from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Rates start at $255.
1920 Squaw Valley Road, Squaw Valley, 530-583-1578, plumpjacksquawvalleyinn.com

Moody’s Bistro, Bar & Beats
Within the Truckee Hotel, Moody’s is both inspired eatery and live music hangout, where a plate of truffled deviled eggs or housemade corndogs with Coca-Cola ketchup makes perfect sense while a blues band plays. Thin-crust pizza, burgers, sandwiches and house-made pastas round out the standard offerings, while bison short ribs and Durham Ranch elk burger stand out as the not-in-Kansas-anymore choices. Wines on tap include J Pinot Gris and Qupé Syrah, and you can pillage Moody’s Cellar for a bottle of something rare. And be on the lookout: Paul McCartney has been known to show up unannounced and sing a few tunes.
10007 Bridge St., Truckee, 530-587-8688, moodysbistro.com

All Gene Abravaya has left from nearly 15 years working behind the cameras in national network television is a grainy videotape.

The video shows him rehearsing a scene with actor Scott Baio for the sitcom called “Charles in Charge.” Co-star Willie Aames was out that one day, so as the show’s stage manager, Abravaya stepped in to help Baio run through his lines.

“Scott and I were wearing sweaters that looked exactly alike, and we had the same coloring, so the camera operators didn’t know who was who,” Abravaya said.

The tape caught Baio’s inadvertent double-take when he was confronted by what looked like his double.

“It was my one and only time in front of the camera,” Abravaya said.

In the North Bay, Abravaya, 62, has been a presence on the local live theater scene for the past quarter-century as an actor, director and playwright.

After working on soap operas in New York and sitcoms in Los Angeles from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, Abravaya moved to Sonoma County in 1990 with his wife, Teri, and their two children. He became the publicist for Rohnert Park’s Spreckels Center for the Performing Arts in 2000, and its manager in 2011.

Born in New York City in 1951, Abravaya grew up in Queens and graduated from Adelphi University on Long Island in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in speech.

After a summer stock theater tour in Ohio, including productions with comic impressionist Rich Little and TV actor David Doyle (Bosley on “Charlie’s Angels”), Abravaya went looking for work in New York.

“I was auditioning for acting jobs when my money ran out,” Abravaya recalled. “Then I saw a want ad in The New York Times that said, ‘script typist needed.’ It turned out to be the teleprompter service for all of the Procter & Gamble soap opera series that were taping in New York at that time.”

Soon he was the studio teleprompter operator for “As the World Turns,” and during the next five years, worked his way up to assistant to the producer. He worked with series co-stars Eileen Fulton and Don Hastings, and former child actor Freddie Bartholomew, who joined the show as an executive producer.

At the series’ occasional on-location shoots, Abravaya met with a blizzard in upstate New York and a traffic jam on the 59th Street Bridge in New York City, and he began to look west.

After sending out 300 resumes and getting three replies, Abravaya went to Los Angeles for an interview at Universal Television, NBC’s production arm.

“The elevator doors opened, and a big guy in a gorilla suit waved to me and walked on by,” Abravaya remembered. “From that moment on, I knew I had left reality.”

In the 1980s, Abravaya worked as stage manager and eventually line producer on prime-time TV series in LA. He spent almost five years at Embassy TV, working on comedy series including “Facts of Life,” “The Jeffersons,” “One Day at a Time” and “Diff’rent Strokes.”

Ultimately, Abravaya tired of long, hectic work weeks alternating with idle time between seasons, and decided he’d gone as far in TV as he could. In 1988, the television industry in Los Angeles was crippled when writers, directors and actors went out on strike, and Abravaya began to look north.

“I had done really well, but decided I’d had my fill. I’d been working 50 to 60 hours a week, but I had work 30 weeks a year and then the industry would go on hiatus between seasons,” he said of the tumultuous work rhythm. “And by then, we had two children.”

The Abravayas moved to Rohnert Park, where Teri’s sister lived, and settled down to raise their family.

“When I think back on my career, I’ve always been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time,” he said.

After Timo Marshall proposed to his girlfriend, Ashby, he wanted a meaningful gesture to break the news to her parents. So he gave them a bottle of his family’s traditional, homemade sloe gin.

“That was the biggest thing I could think of doing,” the U.K. native recalled nearly a decade later.

Now the Sebastopol couple want to bring sloe gin to the rest of America, producing what they say is the first traditional English version made in the U.S. The Marshalls founded Spirit Works Distillery in 2013 with a specific eye toward creating the unjustly obscure liquor.

They started out thinking they would buy a farm and grow sloe berries and other products to help some local distillery make a traditional gin. But two things quickly became clear. First, the Marshalls didn’t have the time or money to create such a high-risk, small-audience farm. And second, there wasn’t a small distiller that makes the base liquors —vodka and gin — in the exacting manner that the couple had in mind.

So the Marshalls decided to do it themselves, learning from scratch how to make liquor.

Their distillery, in Sebastopol’s new Barlow district, is a gleaming showpiece, with three separate stills enabling head distiller Ashby to make liquors of all sorts, starting with their vodka and gin.

What distinguishes Spirit Works from many distillers, however, is that the Marshalls control every aspect of the process, starting with buying the wheat they grind and brew into the base mash that becomes the liquor. Many distillers purchase premade mash, or even buy premade liquor to infuse with other flavors.

The Marshalls grind California winter red wheat to a fine flourlike consistency, mix it with hot water to make a mash (similar to the process used by beer brewers), then distill that mash into vodka. To that vodka, they add various herbs and spices and redistill it to create gin. That in turn becomes sloe gin when the sloe berries are steeped in the gin to extract the fruit flavor.

“The important thing always to come back to with us is we are a grain-to-glass facility,” Timo said. Since there are hardly any sloe berries grown in the U.S., Spirit Works turned to a source in Eastern Europe. But the rest of the ingredients are sourced as locally as possible.

The process of making sloe gin is straightforward: soak some of the small sloe berries (a relative of the plum) in liquor to extract the purple color and bitter fruity flavor, then add some sugar and let it age.

The result is a silky, fruity concoction that is similar to a rich Port or a French cassis, the liqueur often mixed with Champagne to create a kir royale.

Like many Englishmen, Timo grew up in a family that foraged for sloe berries in the fall; the fruit is freely available on the blackthorn bushes used by many farmers to create hedgerows around their fields.

Collecting the berries, painstakingly preparing them to soak in the liquor, and bottling the sugared juice are part of nostalgia in the English countryside, he said. Families bond over the process, often sharing glasses of the previous year’s product while making the new batch.

“No one farms sloes. … In the autumn we would take these walks: In the U.K., you can walk anywhere, there are public footpaths over everyone’s farms, and you can just forage in the hedgerows for whatever is there at the time,” Timo said. “Most families out there will make a couple bottles or six bottles of sloe gin every autumn.”

Unfortunately, commercial sloe gin has gotten a bad name in recent decades, made with cheap liquor and low-grade flavorings. Only a handful of distillers around the world make sloe gin the proper way.

In its more traditional, professionally produced form, Timo and Ashby said, sloe gin is more bitter and less sweet than the homemade stuff; this allows bartenders to more finely control the flavor profile of cocktails.

But even with the differences in homemade sloe gin, the Spirit Works version has gotten a thumbs-up from an important critic: Timo’s father. “He told me, ‘Your great-grandmother would definitely have approved,’” Timo said.

Michael Cecconi, bartender at San Francisco’s Two Sisters Bar and Books and consultant to Sebastopol’s Zazu restaurant, said that Spirit Works’ sloe gin, which sells for around $40 a bottle, revives a “wonderful tradition with a local product.” The intense fruit flavor and modest alcohol (54 proof) make it an excellent ingredient for bartenders looking to make relatively low-alcohol cocktails.

The distillery’s great story, combining family history with the farm-to-glass, do-it-yourself ethos, appeals to customers, particularly in the Bay Area, who are interested in artisan production.

But it’s not just customers who are happy. One of the side benefits of finally debuting their dream drink, Timo said, is that they now have enough sloe gin on hand to actually indulge in a few glasses once in a while, rather than hoarding the annual harvest for special occasions.

“It’s so hard to come by … it’s so luxurious for us to be able to go to our pantry and have a couple of glasses of sloe gin,” he said.