Corralitos, Corralitos, CA

Corralitos is where Watsonville's farm fields give way to creek canyons, orchards and hillside vineyards. The creek that gives the area its name runs through the middle, and the whole place has the feel of a country crossroads, with a market, a cafe and tasting rooms spaced along the roads instead of a suburban grid of shops. Houses sit on larger parcels among apple trees, vines and redwoods, mostly along winding roads that follow the creek and climb the slopes. Lots are big enough that neighbors sit a bit apart, and the setting reads as country living from the road. The market anchors daily life. Corralitos Market and Sausage Company, at 569 Corralitos Road, is a country store with a butcher counter and deli, known for hand-made sausage and marinated skirt steak. The Bavarian cheese sausage is the one visitors mention most. Lito's Community Cafe and Market sits on Freedom Boulevard where the community shades into the edge of town, and it handles breakfast with bagels and spreads. Wine fills out the rest of the map. Ferrari Ranch Wines sits inside the boundary, and the wine trail strings together eight family wineries, including Windy Oaks Estate, the highest of them at about 1,000 feet up a curving road. Cool evenings and hot days suit pinot noir and chardonnay, and most tasting rooms welcome a picnic. For a hike, Byrne-Milliron Forest lies roughly a third of a mile outside the boundary. Its loop trail runs about three miles, with long sightlines over the valley floor to the bay and an ancient redwood along the way. Leashed dogs are allowed, and the drive up is a rough one. The roads twist, and the nearest big grocery store is a drive down the hill. That is the price of the quiet, and the streets follow the creek and the slopes instead of a grid, which shapes how the place feels.