West Sacramento is located on the east side of Yolo County, along the vibrant riverfront of the Sacramento River. With so many fun things to choose from, we’ve rounded up a quick list of our top five things to do in West Sacramento. 1. Drake's The Barn...
If you’ve eaten at the Savory Café on Woodland’s revitalized Main Street, you’ve probably seen the hard-working and driven executive chef Toby Barajas popping in and out of the kitchen. And maybe you’ve had occasion to glimpse Juan’s wife Kristin’s strawberry blond head (containing extreme smarts but we’ll get to that later) surveying the operations. But almost definitely, if you’ve been to the Savory, you’ve heard Juan Barajas “the business brother” talking excitedly about food.
Drive three short miles northeast of Winters, just beyond the bustling historic downtown, and you’ll come to a barn that overlooks a field of ever-rotating crops, stretching beyond the view of the natural eye, dancing in the evening when the cool Delta Breeze whistles through. Depending on the time of day, the structure can appear a romantic fire hydrant red, bringing to mind the types of farms you see in big budget Hollywood films or in children’s picture books.
Or it can come across as a soft brown, blending in with the dry side of the westward Vaca Mountains, which funnel the Lake Berryessa watershed to farmers all over Yolo County down through Putah Creek. At sunset, light plays a trick on your eyes and the barn emits a sharp yellow as the massive almond tree from a neighboring property casts a shadow over the rustic brown gate that reads: “Turkovich Family Wines.”
Fred Manas is a rancher, in the fullest sense of the term. He grows and harvests good things to eat: a variety of fruits on 60 acres around Esparto, almost all of it sold on the premises, and Angus-Hereford cattle run in the fields and foothills of Napa and Yolo counties, which is processed and sold at his namesake meat market near town. He wears what suits him: jeans with a large tarnished buckle, stripped shirt with two pockets, cowboy boots that haven’t polished since he bought them, and a hat no one else in the world could get away with wearing.
Fred Manas is a rancher, in the fullest sense of the term. He is friendly, convivial, warm-hearted, generous. He is intelligent, focused, hard-working, genuine. There is no one who does not like him, and he is widely admired.
Davis, California with its “friendliest town” moniker and acclaimed UC Davis, has been enticing visitors for more than 100 years. Campus visits are favorable times for new students and families to get an experiential view of the community and college life. Glean...
Ask Davis residents where they should take visitors, and most will mention the UC Davis Arboretum. The 100-acre public garden is the community’s most spectacular asset. And it’s free. About the arboretum This “living museum” spans about 100 acres, and showcases...
Walking into the Seka Hills wine tasting room, nestled in the heart of the verdant Capay Valley, you get a clear sense of prosperity and welcome. The wide-open room with smooth wooden floors, comfortable lounging chairs, tasteful retail displays, and modern bar front all blend handsomely together, complemented by views into the adjacent olive mill.
And the scent of the mill crushing what will soon be Seka’s highly-rated olive oil perfumes the air. During this time of year, you can watch as the mill’s employees keep hard at work in the background—part of the unique charm of this Yolo County attraction. You can taste wine and olive oil, enjoy a variety of events, relax inside or outdoors on the spacious patio and lawns.
With a half-dozen microbreweries producing insanely good craft beers—Eye of the Lager, anyone?—Yolo County is becoming one of California’s capitals of beer touring
“Beer,” Trent Yackzan says, “is an emotional beverage.”
Yackzan is sipping one of his beers at his Sudwerk Brewing Company in Davis. And it only takes one sip of Sudwerk’s Cascaderade IPA or Big DIPL to realize that he is right. Beer is an emotional beverage, and the emotions it stirs most strongly are happy ones. Joy, exhilaration, delight —it would take a million emoji’s to fully express the pleasure you feel when drinking a really good glass of beer.
We asked long-time Sunset Magazine travel editor Peter Fish to visit Winters and tell us what he found there ~ here is his entertaining report.
HERE WE ARE, my wife and I, in downtown Winters, California, on a fine Saturday afternoon. On the sidewalk on Main Street, just outside Berryessa Gap Vineyards’ tasting room, a small sandwich board sign shares a profound piece of wisdom: WINE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER.
This day in Winters, we quickly learn the sign is correct. If your questions are: (A) how to spend a really fun afternoon; and (B) explore a very pretty downtown; and (C) meet interesting people, wine-tasting in Winters is always the answer.
