we managed to wake up fairly early for our first, and only full, day in the santa rosa area.  thanks time change!

the hotel had a great {&  free!} breakfast complete with bagels, salmon, fresh fruit & cheeses.  then we caught a cup of coffee & a latte at the coffee shop across the street & hit the road for our first tastings.  things get started early, with most tasting rooms opening their doors at 10:00am.  no need to wait for 5 o’clock, or even noon for that matter.  hey!  it’s vacation!

our first stop:{ferrari carano}

where we scored a premium tasting.  in addition to the regular, of course.  we needed a little warm up.  it was only 10:00am.

down in the prevail room, christopher walken poured us some of the higher end goods.  well.  not really, but he reminded me a lot of him, and kinda looked like him, too.  he wasn’t super friendly at first, but once he saw that mr. lusher knew his stuff, he started to warm up to us.

…we finished up & moved on to:{sbragia with killer views & willi’s}

we picked up a bottle of gamble ranch chardonnay & moved on to downtown healdsburg for some much needed lunch.  both on the recommendation of mr. walken & he did not disappoint.

after eating our fair share of seafood & tapas we made our way out to martin ray.  we were the only people in the tasting room for a little while & made the most of it by sipping all they had to offer & making mental lists of other fun stuff to do on our last night in santa rosa, thanks to the suggestions of two running the tasting room.  they know what’s up.{martin ray & lagunitas}

aaaaaand we crashed a charity function in petaluma.  in our defense, i don’t think we were the only ones.

lagunitas makes an awesome ipa & we just wanted to get our hands on some of the stuff that doesn’t always make it to the east coast.  plus, they had the panthers game on, so it was meant to be.{enjoying some brown shugga}

if you see any of their beers.  pick them up.  there isn’t a bad one in the bunch.  also?  they have great names.

so now, our plans were to drop the car off at the hotel & walk into downtown santa rosa for dinner at guy fieri’s other restaurant.  but.  it was closed for renovations.

as chance would have it, we happened to be right down the street from the brewpub of, oh, just one of the best breweries in the country: russian river.  and bar food is good for the drinking soul.

we sat down & did the only logical thing to do when faced with beer of that caliber:  try all of it.{soooo happy to be here & draught sampler}

we also vaguely remember having a pizza covered with jalapenos & dipping sauce made of liquid fire.

{if you happen upon any of these, don’t hesitate, GET. THEM.}

never has the beer drinking been so good.  ipas, belgians, sours….we were blown away.

& that’s where things got blurry.{no, seriously.}

while finishing up the best collection of beers we’ve found by accident, we listened to a band that played what can best be described as acid trip funhouse music……gave daps to a large staue, hung out with the peanuts & finally made it back to the hotel.

whew!  long day!