Nature Journal- Wine Country

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Before my trip to Sonoma, California, I would not consider wine country to be “real nature”. However, I was definitely mistaken. The vineyards in this area consist of hundreds, some even thousands of acres of beautiful grapevines. The amazing part about visiting in the fall is that all of the leaves on the vines also change color along with the trees. Kunde Family Winery was my favorite winery that we went to and had by far the prettiest estate vineyard. As we walked through the rows of vines, I was stunned at how many different colors there were. Vibrant orange, red, and yellow interlaced with dark maroon made for the most picturesque landscape. Each vineyard we went to consisted of about a 45-minute drive up a small two-lane road. Normally when someone else is driving, I typically look at my phone or talk with the other people in the car with me. But this time, none of us were talking, we were all looking out the window at the infinite rows of vines. We pulled the car over and hopped out on the side of the road to take pictures at every chance we got. The vines go right up to road, so we found ourselves wandering four, five, maybe six rows back. The grapes were much tinier and darker than I expected. Definitely different from the grapes you see in the grocery store. Some of these grapevines were hundreds of years old and had base vines that looked large like a tree trunk.

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