I know this is the best place to come for travel advice! We will be in the Santa Rosa area for a wedding in July. My H and I hope to go out a few days early and spend some time elsewhere in wine country. Any suggestions for nice (but not crazy expensive) hotels, restaurants and wineries/other activities?
Consider a non-hotel rental; tripping.com is a mega search tool. https://www.tripping.com/
I liked the interesting architecture at Quixote, the art at Hess andCliff Lede, the European feel at Chateau Montelena, the wine at Larkmead.
We usually stay in Sonoma at the Renaissance Lodge and ask for a cottage room - they come with fireplaces. Napa is a short drive away. Sonoma is closer to Santa Rosa than Napa, I think. Hotels in Napa/Sonoma can be ridiculously expensive on weekends and really reasonable during the week. It is all about supply and demand: weekends is when Silicon Valley and SF techies pile in their cars and drive there for a couple of nights of fun. Also, weddings are usually held on weekends.
I second the recommendation of Hess Collection winery if you like modern art. You get 3 stories of it, plus the wines are good.
A bit of a drive, but Sterling winery has an aerial tram and wine tasting at the top of their mountain compound. Great views of the valley!
Our absolute favorite is tasting sparkling wines at Mumm Napa. You get three glasses of different bubbles which you can enjoy on their patio overlooking the vineyard. There is a photo gallery in the barn building next to the tasting room, and it is often open for the visitors to browse.
If you want chichi, there is Opus One. 
If you have or want Hilton points, the Embassy Suites in Napa is nice. There are some really fancy places if price is no object. Some of our favorite wineries are: Silver Oak, Saintsbury and V. Sattui. The gardens at V. Sattui are a great place for lunch and bottle of wine - just be aware it seems like everyone else thinks so too!
In addition to Napa, we also enjoy just walking around the downtown square in Sonoma - which is closer if you are in Santa Rosa. Lot’s of cute shops and little restaurants - we like the Mexican place (La Casa) across the street from the Mission. If you are/were a Peanuts fan, in Santa Rosa you can visit the Charles Schultz museum. So many good things to do.
Enjoy!
If you like natural wonders, Jack London State Park is amazing. History and miles of hiking trails. There are wineries nearby, too.
Hwy 12, the road from Santa Rosa to Sonoma, is bordered by wineries. I think Its a beautiful road.
The Somoma Square area has a lot of nice restaurants.
Of course, Napa County has a ton of great restaurants too.
I like staying in the Healdsburg area. There are some good VRBOs available. Lots of beautiful wineries nearby, and if you want to do something other than wine tasting you can go hiking in the redwood forests in Armstrong State Reserve (30 mins away) or go stand-up paddleboarding in the Russian River (rental places just a few minutes away), or take a trip to the beautiful beaches on the Sonoma coastline.
Calistoga is another good area to stay in.
The Indian Springs at Castiloga is fun - we rented one of the big cottages for a family get together a few years ago. Huge warm swimming pool, mud baths, volleyball courts etc. We’ve stayed twice at a small inn in Castiloga that was cheaper than Indian Springs called Christopher’s Inn, it’s apparently changed hands and is called The Bergson, still gets good reviews. I had good advice and a trip report from last year: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1777911-another-vacation-suggestion-thread-napa-sonoma-p1.html
I’m eager for suggestions too - as we are going again for two days in June and I’d like to stay in a place a little further south, but preferably not too pricey. (i.e. under $200 a night)
My concern about Sonoma and Napa in July is the heat. One year we went to a summer wedding on the Russian River west of Santa Rosa but stayed with family in Santa Rosa. Spent two days in Sonoma. It was so hot that we didn’t complain about the San Francisco fog when we hit the city. It felt so good.
We’ve gone several times in late June. It’s hot in the middle of the day - but as they like to say - it’s a dry heat. It’s not nearly as awful as most of the summer on the east coast. The wineries are all cool, cars have air conditioning. I’m not seeing a problem. Maybe you don’t go hiking in the Jack London estate at noon.
Oh my gosh! Napa/Sonoma is the BEST, it’s one of my favorite places in the country, definitely in the top 3! Since you aren’t looking to stay at one of those amazing luxury resorts, check out the Hiton: http://thevacationgals.com/hilton-garden-inn-napa-hotel/ It also has a complimentary breakfast. You are going to love the area. Depending on when you go, the Healdsburg (in Sonoma) Art Walk on Saturday is so, so lovely. You can winery it up like crazy of course, but if you want a break from being sort of tipsy all day long, you can rent kayaks and kayak the Napa River. There are a couple rental places right in Downtown Napa. A small company called Kayak Napa Valley is great.
I booked a farm house through airbnb.com in Sonoma area for a vacation in June. super excited about it. Check it out if you don’t mind staying in other people’s places instead of a hotel.
P.S. you will find quality better than a 5-star hotel if you are willing to pay more
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2856027 something like this
The 3 towns I would recommend in the Napa Valley are Yountville, St. Helena, and Calistoga. Doing a mud bath in Calistoga is lots of fun and very relaxing! I “second” staying in Sonoma or off Hwy 12. Not only are there excellent wineries throughout the region, my favorite brewery in the entire world is in downtown Santa Rosa-- Russian River Brewing Company-- makers of Pliny The Elder IPA. Just down the road on Hwy. 12 is a wonderful restaurant, John Ash and Company. Other favorite restaurants of ours are Tra Vigna and Meadowood, both located in St. Helena. One of the the world’s finest restaurants is in Yountville, The French Laundry, but reservations must be made many months in advance. Dinner for two with wine can run you a grand in round numbers. Zinfandel Lane in St. Helena has some cute but pricey accommodations.I personally do not like Napa accommodations in the actual town of Napa. A little on the outskirts of “quaintness”.
The trouble is you can’t make reservations many months in advance. You make them one month in advance and the phone is always busy! We’ve tried multiple times! Meadowood is easier to get reservations to, just as many stars and we had an amazing meal there.
When I ate there many moons ago, French Laundry took reservations 6 months in advance. Then it was 3 months in advance… I bet it’s no problem getting into Redd in Yountville, another favorite of ours. Their business must be down ever since the lawsuit against them. Sadly, someone died after eating their scallops. My wife said it was the best scallop dish she has ever eaten.
H and I went to Napa with his two business partners and their wives–they planned it and we tagged along.
Napa was our base to visit wineries for 3 days. We didnt spend much time there, except to go to a great restaurant–Morimoto Napa, which was spectacular. The night we were there Thomas Kelleher (chef at French Laundry) came in with his staff. (Our waiter was in a tizzy.) We also went to The Vintner’s Collective in Napa. It features/sells wines from wineries that are too small to have their own tasting room. Good wines and good prices.
The last time I was in Napa was 5 years ago. We stayed at Indian Springs in Calistoga (see the recommendation above from @mathmom , my secret twin), which we have enjoyed since 1980. The mudbaths are a trip and a half, and it has a larger-than-Olympic size pool filled with slightly sulfurous, super-warm hot spring water.
The three main meals we ate on that trip were probably the best three meals in a row in my life: Dinner at Tra Vigne, the classic Tuscalifornian restaurant (which, sadly, closed a few months ago, for reasons apparently having nothing to do with the quality of its food), dinner at Puerto Vallarta in Calistoga (inexpensive, wonderful fish tacos), and a four-hour long Mother’s Day lunch at the French Laundry, which was simply the best meal I have ever had. (I am not really a fan of ultra-high-end restaurants – at that level, the expense interferes with my enjoyment – but I would go back to the French Laundry anytime.)
I think the French Laundry was doing its reservations three months in advance. Anyway, we called for a reservation, got laughed at for our naivete in thinking we might get one, but were offered a place on their waitlist for canceled reservations. (Who would cancel a reservation there? You have to pay a significant non-refundable deposit when you make the reservation.) Three days later, they called my cell phone and offered us an 11:00 am lunch on Mother’s Day. We planned the trip around it.
JHS and mathmom, As a kid I swam in that super-sized Olympic pool several times during the summer months. They even had a 3+ meter diving platform diving along with a fountain in the shallow end. Do those features still exist? Will never forget the place: on one of those visits as a small child, I was all whiny because my swimsuit waist band wouldn’t keep my trunks up because the drawstring was missing. My father eventually got tired of me fussing and took the one out of his trunks. Shortly thereafter I see him diving into the pool and surfacing with a brightly colored mark and blood trickling down in the middle of forehead. It turned out upon entering the water his trunks shot down to his ankles, occupying both hands right before he hit the bottom of the pool!
mathmom, Check out the El Bonita Motel in St. Helena. Old but very charming. Ask for a room that is away from the road.
I may have mixed up Indian Springs with Pachetou’s (?). We swam at both. You didn’t have to be a lodging guest. You could just pay a fee to use those pools.
Sorry couldn’t edit above. I think Pacheteau’s (correct spelling) is now the Golden Haven. Their pool was gigantic but they have extensively re-worked the property since I was a kid. From their website it looks like the fountain from the old days may have been saved and is now part of the beautiful landscaping.