For over 90 years, the Sonoma Cheese Factory, located in a historic building on the Sonoma Plaza, has drawn cheese lovers for its incredible selection of hard, soft, and semi-hard cheeses. Nearby is the historic Vella Cheese Company. Since 1931, they’ve been crafting all-natural cheeses, which you can sample inside their tiny shop. In Petaluma, try a wide array of flavors — from sage cheddar to garlic jack — at the Petaluma Creamery. Shop their line of butter and in the summer months, stay for a cone of delicious ice cream.
Enjoy a truly rustic and authentic experience at Joe Matos Cheese Factory in Santa Rosa. Open daily, you can pull right up to their little shop and aging room on their farm and be greeted with a big chunk of their St. Jorge, a semi-soft, richly-nutty, cow’s milk cheese named for the island in the Azores that owners Joe and Mary Matos grew up on.
In Sebastopol, Bohemian Creamery offers weekend tours of their hilltop creamery, which overlooks Laguna de Santa Rosa, the Mayacamas mountains, and their herd of Alpine dairy goats. During your visit, you can sample well over a dozen of their goat, sheep, cow, and water buffalo milk cheeses. Head into town where Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers sells proper British cheese, including a blue, aged cheddar, and addictive cheese curds out of their small factory in The Barlow.
Just north of Healdsburg‘s town square, Journeyman Meat Co. is a butcher shop, salumeria, and wine tasting bar from Peter Seghesio, former owner of the 125-year-old, multi-generational Seghesio Family Winery. Seghesio’s grandparents immigrated to Sonoma County from Italy in the 1800s and by the age of three, he was learning how to craft sausage and cure meat. At Journeyman, you can nibble your way through a sausage board, a salumi board, or select a wine and salumi pairing flight. Thistle Meats butcher shop is another great option in Petaluma. Stay for lunch and order up the daily meat pie special.