Stony Hill Vineyards held out for 60 years. While they may not be the only Napa Valley winery to have made exclusively white wine for six decades, they are certainly one of the finest. Most famous for their White Burgundy-esque Chardonnay, the family-owned Spring Mountain winery has been going about their business making lovely, balanced and age-worthy wines in pretty much the same way since 1952. And now, a Cabernet Sauvignon joins the ranks of their Chardonnay, Riesling and Gewurztraminer.

In most parts of the northern hemisphere, harvest is well underway (with some fresh-drinking whites ready to be enjoyed here in California), but in the region of Saint-Emilion on the right bank of the Dordogne River in Bordeaux, harvest doesn’t begin until a group of men and women draped in red says it does.

What does an eccentric Hungarian Count born 200 years ago and a charismatic modern-day Frenchman have in common? Oddly enough, a passion for making wine… in Sonoma. Last year, Jean-Charles Boisset of Boisset Family Estates, a negociant wine company based in Burgundy, purchased the oldest winery in California — Buena Vista, just outside the town square in Sonoma — and has set about painstakingly restoring the historic cellars.

Oddities, bookshops, and macchiatos abound in the blocks surrounding Healdsburg’s well-manicured central plaza, just 69 miles north of the city. Residents and regulars of the Valencia Street corridor know that if there’s a requisite ingredient to achieving the local vibe, it is artisan cult coffee.