It seems I'm posting the last vacation just in time to leave for the next. Don't judge me. So waaaaaayyyy back in March, we went to Sonoma, California for an extended-weekend vacation. And I took lots of pictures and little notes and promised myself I'd blog all about it as soon as we got home, but then life got in the way as it always does. See Matt got this awesome iPhone app game called Drop 7 and now we're slaves to it. Peek in our window any evening and you'll probably see both of us on opposite ends of the couch staring into our little iPhone/iTouch screens poking away and occasionally muttering an obscenity when the stupid ball doesn't drop in the right place. It's our nicotine.
So, here's the long-over-due post about Sonoma, which is fabulous (Sonoma, not the blog post. Although hopefully that will be informative and entertaining too!)
Day 1 - immediately upon arrival, Matt looks up the nearest In-and-Out Burger location on his iPhone (I swear, we're not being paid by Apple to mention iPhones every paragraph. I wish.) Because every trip to California must begin with a gut-busting visit to In-and-Out Burger. I prefer to think of it as laying down a good fat foundation to soak up all the alcohol we'll be consuming, just being responsible about our drinking! And not only did we find IAOB, we found one attached to a Krispy Kreme! Which led to all kinds of speculation and ideas - why not put a burger ON a Krispy Kreme? Sweet & savory, all in one serving, and your arteries would probably just burst on the spot.
Our next stop was lovely Petaluma, California. Matt listens to a podcast by Leo Laporte. Recognize that name? Congrats, you're a tech geek! He broadcasts from a studio in Petaluma and with a little internet stalking investigating, Matt found the coordinates to the studio (which he plugged into Maps on the iPhone, natch - golly that thing is handy!) We arrived at a sweet looking little house with a open porch bearing a big TWiT sign (This Week in Technology, for the non-geeks), a small fridge, coffee maker and wicker patio furniture. We hovered on the porch a bit, not sure if we should go in further and Matt was getting ready to go when a guy came out on the porch and put on a kettle of water for tea. And that guy was Leo LaPorte himself. Of course, I was clueless but Matt introduced himself and we were invited into the studio to watch the broadcast. It was really impressive, lots of computers and screens and lighting and cameras. He was conducting a discussion with a couple of guys via computer (Skype?) and I have no idea what they were talking about - it was something related to space exploration and stuff. I just sat and pretended to listen (I barely passed Astrology 101 in college). But this was a pretty big deal for Matt and he was in Geek Heaven. We hung around for about 20 minutes and Mr. LaPorte could not have been nicer or friendlier. Not many guys would just invite a couple of strangers in to watch him work. Very cool guy.
Next stop, Lagunitas Brewery also conveniently located in Petaluma. I don't like beer, but this place was very cool. The tour begins with a generous tasting in what appears to be the company lounge. It's a great space, a cross between a dive bar and someone's basement rec room (except it's a loft). I imagine they have some excellent parties up there.
The first photo shows kegs marked to be delivered to the Windy City. Then we have Matt hugging a keg (why do I feel I could be so easily replaced?). The last 3 pics are in the "tasting room". There was a very interesting lighting fixture made from Barbie dolls, a view of the foosball table and the fridge, which included a copy of a traffic citation from a customer who was stopped for drinking Lagunitas beer while driving. It was less a traditional tasting room and more like your best friend's basement. And that's a good thing.
On to Sonoma. We stayed in Santa Rosa, which seemed to be a good central location. Dinner that night was over in Napa however, at the Rutherford Grill. In the "small world" category, our waitress was from Chicago and had worked at Bandera, one of my favorite places, which is part of the same restaurant group (Houston's) as Rutherford Grill. However, Bandera does not have the yummy blue-cheese covered potato chips we had at Rutherford Grill (it's OK, I had a salad for dinner, so it all balanced out). Our fabulous waitress clued us in to topping them with tabasco, taking the yum factor up a notch.
Day 2 - We started with a lovely drive to Healdsburg in Dry Creek Valley and picked up breakfast sandwiches at the Jimstown Grocery. We decided to spend the rest of the day in Dry Creek Valley, which is Zinfindel central in Sonoma. We'd done some research and wanted to focus on places that were smaller, not as readily-available at home and specialized in Zins, which we love. Most of these places don't hold regular tasting hours because they're run by the owner, so we made reservations. It's interesting because we were the only people and the tasting was conducted by the owner/winemaker, so we learned a lot about the wine and process.
Our first stop was Unti Vinyards. Great place and we walked away with 3 bottles. Next stop was Talty Vinyards. We were greeted by a big fluffy dog (a shepard mix?) who trotted up to the car, tail wagging with one of those big doggie smiles, and escorted us to the tasting room like a welcoming committee. Just outside the tasting room was a little yappy fluffball, also happy to see us. As we entered the tasting room, the big dog grabbed the little dog by the ear and then the tail to drag it back and keep it from going in with us. It was so funny - neither of us has ever seen a dog so clearly communicating "no, you can't do that" to another dog.
Last stop was Hawley another family owned-and-operated winery completely hidden up in the hills. One of the sons conducted our tasting, and another son had taken the pictures for the guidebook we were using (an excellent book if you're planning to visit Sonoma). And the mother is an artist, painting gorgeous wine country landscapes.
We bought 2 bottles at Hawley, bringing us to a total of 5 for the day. Before we started I'd said "OK, we really shouldn't buy any more wine, unless it's really special, because we have so much at home right now." As you can see that didn't last long. Now the goal was to limit ourselves to a case.
Friday night we had dinner at Zin's Restaurant and WIne Bar in Healdsburg, mostly because Matt read something about a popular appetizer, beer-battered fried green beans with mango salsa. This is how we plan vacations, around things we see on the Food Network or read in Food & Wine magazine - "hey, that looks good, let's go there!". I'm totally not even kidding. So yeah, we got the green beans and they were pretty tasty.
You wouldn't necessarily match up green beans and mango salsa but it worked. After way too much good food and a bottle of wine we waddled back to the hotel and fell into a food coma.
Day 3 - we set off to find a place for breakfast, hoping for a cute little local diner. We lucked out when we found Garden Court Cafe & Bakery in Glen Ellen. Their motto is "If You Leave Hungry...It's Your Own Fault". And they aren't kidding. This is one of those places that's been there forever and where everyone knows everyone (except you). It was exactly what we needed to lay down a solid foundation for drinking wine all day.
We had planned our trip during the Savor Sonoma festival, a barrel tasting event. 20 wineries were offering barrel tasting (where you can taste wines that will be released in 3-9 months) and food. It was a great deal, $50/person for 2 days of tastings and food. There was a nice mix of large well-known producers as well as some smaller wineries we'd never heard of, so it was a good opportunity to find something new. Our goal was to visit 4 places each day (we've learned that's about our limit, then everything starts to taste the same).
We started off at Muscardini and Ty Caton, two wineries we're very familiar with and really like. We had never heard of barrel tastings before, so it was fun to meet the winemakers and hear about the process they go through when making the wine. And yes, we bought more wine. Next stop was Wellington, another winery we've purchased a lot of wine from but never visited. Not surprisingly we picked up a bottle there too. I'll just come clean and tell you we ended up with 12 bottles of wine, which we shipped home.
After heading home for a little nap, we decided to drive to Bodega Bay. It was a gorgeous drive, if a little foggy. We passed by so many farms and fields, with cows and calves (or as we like to call them, veal - hey if we weren't meant to eat them, whcy did God make them taste so good?) Very pastoral.
That night we had dinner at The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma. And kudos to them - I totally screwed up our reservation, somehow making it for the following Saturday night, which of course would not do at all. But they very nicely fit us in and were even kind about it (poor girl, she can't even read a calendar properly. How does that guy put up with her?) Not only that - they sat us at a table next to James VanDerBeek (remember, Dawson, from Dawson's Creek?) Matt was oblivious. I passed him a note (because I'm subtle that way) saying "James VanDerBeek is sitting to your left" and he looked at me and shrugged. Then I made him eat silently so I could eavesdrop on JVDB all night. He looks really good - much younger than I'd thought. Because how often do you get a chance to do that? He seemed like a nice guy. Of course I'm way too cool to say anything but then what would I say? "I liked Dawson's Creek for a few months and I haven't seen anything you've done since then, sorry!" Oh, and I just read he's getting a divorce from his wife, which is sad.
Day 4 - started with a very looooonnnggg drive over twisty mountain roads to Napa. We wanted to have brunch at Ad Hoc, the newest restaurant from Thomas Keller. We can't afford French Laundry but we've always had great meals at Bouchon, his other restaurant, so we wanted to try this one. The deal with Ad Hoc is each day there's a 4-course meal for $49. You eat whatever they're serving, no choices, so it's a bit of a leap of faith that you'll like what they're serving. We made reservations for 10:30a, since we wanted to do more wine tastings later in the afternoon. That should have been fine, but there were some "issues". We were 1 of 2 tables seated at that time and service was REALLY slow. In my opinion, if you open at 10:30, you should be ready with your "A" game at 10:30, especially if you know what everyone is going to be eating because you're in charge of the menu and you're charging $50 per person. So it took a few minutes after being seated to get water, then a few minutes more to get coffee. Which they brought in a french press (yummy!) and told me it should be pressed in 4 minutes. But don't press it myself, they prefer to do that themselves. OK, fine. But after 5 minutes, no one had come back. And if you let the coffee steep too long it gets bitter. So screw it, I pressed it myself. I have a french press at home and it's not exactly rocket science - you just press the top down. Can you unscrew the top of the milk jug? Then you can handle a french press. Also, there was a bread basket with sourdough bread, but it was cold. How hard would it have been, and how much nicer, to just heat the bread a little bit?
Brunch started with a nice little salad. Then they brought biscuits with homemade raspberry preserves (heavenly). The main course was pork belly, a very simple rolled omelette, and hash brown potatoes. The omelette was severely underseasoned. The potatoes were nice, but the pork belly was just crazy good, the best we've ever had. The final course was a danish-type thing, good enough, but I would have rather had more biscuits and raspberry preserves.
Service seemed to pick up a little by 11:00am. But I was still annoyed at how the meal had started. With only 2 tables, it should have been much better early on. Overall though it was a nice meal.
Next we headed back to the Savor Sonoma festival. I think we hit 5 more wineries, probably 1 more than we should have. As we drove past a beautiful field I commented "Wow, that cow is HUGE!" Matt said "That's because it's a horse." OK, enough wine then. Time for a nap.
We decided to head back toward Bodega Bay, since it had been so foggy the day before. This time it was more clear but really windy. Still, the drive along the coast is spectacular.
For dinner, Matt had read about a brew pub he wanted to try, Russian River Brewing Company. I wasn't expecting much, but this place was great. There was a band playing, people were dancing, everyone seemed to know everyone, the place was packed. The food was fine, but Matt was really thrilled with his beer flight. I just enjoyed the people watching, the band and the general atmosphere.
Day 5 - before heading for the airport, we decide to visit the Charles Schultz Museum. Who doesn't love Peanuts? The museum had a special exhibit about Snoopy and his involvement with NASA. Apparently Snoopy was a mascot to the astronauts. They even had a Snoopy award for safety.
Across from the museum is the Charles Schultz ice skating rink. He was a big hockey fan and every day he ate lunch at the Warm Puppy Cafe, and watched the kids ice skate. The rink is really cute, very retro and if we'd had more time I would have rented skates and gone for a spin.
Another cute feature is a live web cam outside the rink. We sat on a bench, then called my mom so she could jump on the computer and see us sitting there.
Alas, all vacations must end, so we headed back for the airport and home.
