SAVORING SONOMA : A TOAST TO THE HISTORY OF A CALIFORNIA TOWN KNOWN FOR ITS WINE.

Byline: Susanne Hopkins Daily News Travel Editor

There's more to Sonoma than wine.

While this small town of about 8,120 people just an hour or so northeast of San Francisco sits in one of the world's most fertile grape-producing valleys and draws about 2.4 million each year to its wineries, it's also a place of history - a facet that many tourists miss.

``We're kind of stumbled upon by accident,'' says Michelle Kazeminejad, a guide at the Gen. Vallejo Home, a California state monument to Gen. Mariano Guadulupe Vallejo, commander of the Sonoma pueblo under Mexican rule. Most tourists, she says, concentrate on visiting the wineries. ``If they have a few days, they'll find us. And it all kind of fits together because Vallejo was one of the first winemakers here.''

This is where the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846 occurred that made California a republic. The bear flag, forerunner of California's state flag, was raised in Sonoma Plaza, the hub of what today is Sonoma State Historic Park and which also includes the Sonoma Barracks; Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, California's last mission; the Toscano Hotel; Lachryma Montis, Vallejo's home; and various sites around the plaza, many of which now house art galleries and shops.

Like a gnarly grapevine, Vallejo's story is intertwined with that of Sonoma. While his name is attached to the town of Vallejo southeast of Sonoma, his mark is everywhere here. There's the eight-acre plaza, the largest in California, which Vallejo himself laid out with a pocket compass and a line. Now a National Historic Landmark, the plaza has become a tree-shaded park centered by the handsome, stone City Hall and ringed by the downtown area of Sonoma. It is still the pivotal point of the city - ask locals for directions and they'll tell you how many blocks your destination is from the plaza.

The three-story adobe tower Vallejo had built to view the Sonoma valley is also still here, as is the still-standing San Francisco Solano mission chapel he had constructed after the mission church was destroyed by a severe rainstorm in 1833.

The two-story adobe barracks at Spain and First Street East just across from the plaza is a good place to start a historical tour. Built to house Mexican troops that arrived with Vallejo in 1834, the structure, which was completed by 1841, tells the story of the Mexican occupation and the Bear Flag Revolt via film and artifacts.

It was probably the most low-key revolution in history.

Just as the sun rose over the Mayacamas Mountains on June 14, 1846, 33 American frontiersmen intent on wresting Alta California away from the Mexican government rode into the pueblo of Sonoma.

They pulled up in front of the adobe home of Vallejo, waited while he donned his Mexican army uniform, then arrested him and sent him to be imprisoned at Sutter's Fort in Sacramento.

Then, they staked their claim, raising a crude flag emblazoned with the figure of a grizzly bear and a red star over the Sonoma Plaza.

The California Republic was born with nary a shot fired nor a life lost in the pueblo.

At the rear of the museum, there's a bear flag on display, a copy of the original that was raised that day (the original is thought to have been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake). And there are interesting nuggets of information about the revolt, which was sparked when the Americans were threatened with being expelled from the territory as soon as the winter snows in the Sierra Nevadas melted, allowing access to the east.

At the time of the revolt, only about 30 people were at the pueblo and Vallejo, frustrated at not being able to get supplies and money from the Mexican army, was paying them out of his own pocket - which probably explains, historians say, why he went along so obligingly with the Americans.

Next to the museum, a long room is set up much as it would have been in the 1840s with hay mattresses, a table where men worked and ate and racks at the head of each bed for hanging belongings.

To the west, the barracks nudges the old Toscano Hotel, a structure built in 1852, which over the years has served as a store, library and dwelling before becoming a hotel - first the Eureka, then, in 1866, the Tuscano (local usage changed the spelling).

The wood-frame building has been refurbished to represent its Victorian heyday. Docents lead free tours through the hotel and its attached kitchen wing from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday through Monday, but visitors who miss the tours can, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, take a few steps inside the hotel and view through barred gates the parlor room with its upright piano and pot-bellied stove and the old barroom, with its tables set up as if awaiting a few foursomes for cards.

The mission

Across the street to the east of the barracks is the Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma. was once a 27-room building with more than 10,000 acres of land. While the original mission church was destroyed in that fierce 1833 rainstorm, there remains the chapel built by Vallejo in 1840-41 and an adobe wing erected in 1825 as living quarters. Portions have been restored over the years.

Today, visitors can wander through the long building that ranks as the oldest building in Sonoma (the mission no longer serves as a church). They'll see photos and some artifacts on display in the bell room with its glass-enclosed section of an original wall of the mission; the dining room, which houses a collection of paintings of California missions; the priest's humble quarters; as well as the plain chapel with its painted walls. But there is little sense of those days in the 1830s when 1,000 people lived and worked and worshiped here.

Gen. Vallejo's home

My feet call it a mistake to walk the three blocks from the plaza and down a long, cottonwood tree-shaded avenue, but three-quarters of a mile later, I am glad I made the effort, sore feet and all.

At the end of the avenue (called the Alameda), there is a handsome yellow home constructed in that fancy Victorian style known as carpenter's gothic, with dormer windows, twin porches and gingerbread trim. It is Gen. Vallejo's home. Built in 1851-52, it provides a fascinating view of the man who created Sonoma.

First stop is the museum, a handsome European-style structure that was once the warehouse for the fruit, vegetables and wine produced on Vallejo's surrounding land. Inside, there are family artifacts such as the general's coach from the 1850s and photos of Vallejo, his wife Francesca and their 16 children.

One of them, Louisa, lived here until her death in 1943, Kazeminejad says. Louisa was also the first curator, having turned her home over to the state in 1933 with the provision that she be allowed to live there until her death and that it be a museum dedicated to her father.

``He was a bit of a visionary,'' Kazeminejad says of the elder Vallejo, adding that he farmed 60 acres of grapes and produced wine long before viticulture was the driving force in the area. ``But he had a lot of hardship - he lost a lot of his land.''

Vallejo, who died in 1890, lived at the place he called Lachryma Montis, or ``mountain tear,'' for 35 years, eventually amassing 500 acres of surrounding land. But he suffered a series of financial reverses and was forced to sell off his land bit by bit; now, only about 20 acres are left.

The interior of the house, with many of the furnishings from the Vallejo family, reflects a man who lived simply and valued such things as music and books (his study once held 12,000 volumes, but many were sold over the years). The dining room, with its marble fireplace, is set as if for a simple midday meal and the wall clock still ticks off the minutes. A circular staircase leads to the three large bedrooms (one outfitted with a massive, intricately hand-carved walnut bedstead) and one tiny child's room upstairs.

Outside, there's a cookhouse and bedroom where the family's Chinese cook worked and lived. Nearby is El Delirio, a small structure that once welcomed family guests. Neither are open to the public, although you can peer through the windows and see how they might have been set up in their heyday.

Birds sing from trees in the attractive garden, and across the road there's a small vineyard of old grapevines. It's not what it was when Vallejo reigned here, but the vestiges of history remain.

On Location

Sonoma State Historic Park is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for children 6 to 12 and includes the barracks, the mission and the Vallejo home. For more information, contact the Sonoma State Historic Park Association, [phone].

For information about Sonoma, contact the Sonoma County Convention & Visitors Bureau, [phone].

Outtakes

There are chic boutiques, lots of tasty Italian eateries and plentiful art galleries to garner your attention in Sonoma. And here are some other sights you might want to take in:

The Sonoma Cheese Factory is at 2 Spain St. across from Sonoma Plaza. It's been here since 1931, when Celso Viviani decided to make cheese in this valley where, for a while at least, cows were almost as plentiful as vineyards and their milk was rich and abundant. His was the first cheese outside of Wisconsin to win the prestigious Wisconsin Cheesemaker Association's gold medal.

Celso's son, Peter, and his son, Dave, now run the factory, which is tucked behind the delicatessen where one is teased by tantalizing smells and an array of food goods. Sonoma Jack, cheddar and variations of the two in a host of flavors are produced here (the most popular is Teleme, a soft, creamy cheese).

Through a plate-glass window, you can watch cheese made the old-fashioned way. White-garbed workers wearing hairnets stir four vast stainless-steel vats of what will eventually be cheese.

``It takes 5 1/2 hours from milk to product and three to four weeks to age (for jack cheese),'' says Lou Biaggi, general manager. On average, the factory produces 10,000 pounds of cheese a day in a variety of flavors, he says. The cheese is hand rolled into rounds and hand packed, then mailed throughout the world.

Just a few blocks from the cheese factory, at 270 First St. W., is the Depot Museum _ aptly named, since county artifacts are housed in a reproduction of the old railroad depot that burned in 1976. Passenger trains stopped here until 1939; trains stopped coming altogether in 1963.

Inside the structure, which is open from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, are displays on the Bear Flag Revolt that resulted in the California Republic; agriculture in the county; and a typical schoolroom of the late 1800s.

The Rand Room _ with its old ticket counter, brakeman's lantern, iron safe and train schedules _ leads to the railroad cars outside where you can tour an old caboose. It's an interesting look at something that doesn't exist on modern trains anymore. Cabooses were where men once kept watch to ensure the train bearings weren't getting too hot. Advanced technology killed the need for them, and they were finally taken off the tracks in 1980.

Trains are big in Sonoma. One mile south of the plaza on Broadway Street is Sonoma Traintown Railroad, a 10-acre amusement park where, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends in winter and daily in summer, steam trains carry passengers on 20-minute trips through the landscaped park with its waterfalls, tunnels and bridges. Fares are $3.50 for adults, $2.50 for children and seniors.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, 2 Boxes

Photo: (1--Color) Copy of original Bear Flag.

(2-4--Color) Above, Sonoma's old adobe buildings, some of which date to the mid-1800s, have a new lease on life as hotels, restaurants and shops. Left, Gen. Mariano Guadulupe Vallejo's home offers a look into the world of the Mexican general who gave up Sonoma to a band of Americans. Right, tucked away in the alleys of Sonoma, colorful murals capture the historic and natural beauty of the area.

(5) Rounds of cheese await processing at the Sonoma Cheese Factory.

Susanne Hopkins/Daily News

Box: (1) On Location (See text) (2) Outtakes (See text)