My wife and I were fortunate enough to call Sonoma County home. We owned a condo in Windsor for 7 years and lived there full-time for almost 3. So, the suggestions in this guide reflect the experiences of a resident rather than a tourist, although we return a few times each year to restock our wine refrigerators with  allocations from the clubs to which we belong. Thus, the information that follows is kept up-to-date. This guide has been written to save you far more than the price of purchase! If this is your first visit to Sonoma County, it should also be an indispensable time-saver. Advance planning (to schedule your visit around one of the events listed on pp. 5, 14 or 15 or purchase one of the tasting passes listed on p. 7) and mapping out a daily route will help you get the most out of your trip.

Sonoma County for Oenophiles (oenophile = wine lover) is written by someone who lived there and is intended to focus on ways to extract the most value from a visit to this "place of superlatives." If you follow the suggestions in this guide, you should easily save far more than its purchase price! It includes tips for getting TO Sonoma County and getting AROUND Sonoma County that will be especially valuable to first time or infrequent visitors. It describes, in depth, three wineries that offer consistently high quality wine and food/wine pairing experiences along with 6 others that regularly end up on the itineraries for our frequent trips back to our former home. Lodging options for every taste and budget are included as is an annotated list of Sonoma County restaurants that don't charge a corkage fee. Finally, this guide describes activities that are uniquely Sonoma County including wine-themed events, annual fairs, artists' studio tours, holiday celebrations, etc. because there's LOTS to do in Sonoma County besides wine tasting (as much fun as that is!).