Ann's Sonoma Vacation Blog

Back in NY

2006-07-12T23:19:00.000-04:00

Sadly, the adventures of the "Swirling Dervishes" had to come to an end. We returned to NY yesterday. Mark and I took what the flight attendant cheerfully called the "$99 tour of the US" - we started in Oakland CA, flew south to San Diego, then east to Austin TX, then on to Orlando FL, and finally, FINALLY, without ever having stepped off the plane at any of those stops, we made it to Islip. I call it the "giant U". Oona and Don wisely took the same path we took to get out there, which let them get up an hour later than my 4 am wakeup.

All in all, I would call this trip a resounding success. Thank you to Mark for driving, and for Oona and Don for their willingness to try a vacation spot that doesn't require a passport. Thank you to the Goatman and the Legless Red Bikini Man of Napa for the laughs. Visit my regular wine blog in the future for reviews of the wines we tasted and the wineries we visited!

Rodney Strong Fermenting Tanks

2006-07-11T00:07:00.000-04:00

The steel fermenting tanks at Rodney Strong. Later we went the tasting room at Clos De Bois. Their reserve Meritage and Briarcrest cabernet were excellent.

Oak Barrels

2006-07-11T00:03:00.000-04:00

Giant oak barrels at the Rodney Strong winery. No cats in sight. No sign of The Goatman or the Legless Red Bikini Man of Napa.

Rodney Strong

2006-07-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

The wines here were excellent and the staff was knowledgeable. Oona and Don joined their wine club. Some of their wines are available in NY - I'd advise trying the Merlot or Cabernet Savignon.

Get Thee to The Insectory

2006-07-10T23:54:00.000-04:00

Mark, doing his best imitation of either Bono or an insect.

It's beer:30 - time to drink!

2006-07-10T23:51:00.000-04:00

Checking out of the cottage -- no beer must go to waste!

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-10T23:49:00.000-04:00

We can NOT leave the beer! NO beer will be left behind. Drink up Oona.

Mark's two salads, part 2

2006-07-10T01:33:00.000-04:00

Mark, amazing us yet again with his capacity for greens, eats two salads.

Refried beans... again

2006-07-10T01:31:00.000-04:00

Mark is happy because he gets to eat refried beans twice in one day. No comment from Ann.

The Goatman Speaketh

2006-07-10T01:29:00.000-04:00

Don, at Maya the mexican restaurant, saying... Why isn't there GOAT on this menu?!?

The Gates of Hess

2006-07-10T01:26:00.000-04:00

View from the winery. Two figures missing from this view are : 1) The goat-man of St. Jean and 2) The "Legless Red Bikini Man of Napa". Both of these colorful figures are the subject of substantial controversy among the locals. Don and Mark are skeptical of both of these legends, assuming they are merely over-blown local legends exaggerated to terrify tourists. But I believe I may have actually seen the legless red bikini man of Napa on the way to this winery while I was speaking with Emily. Perhaps the focus of supernatural powers is what caused our connection to go dead. On the way back, of course, he was gone...off to cavort in the mysterious woods of Napa.

Hess Winery

2006-07-10T01:23:00.000-04:00

Hess Vineyards. We went on a whim. The wine wasn't bad, and the prices were fairly reasonable (for Napa), but we were so jaded at this point that we didn't buy anything. It takes a masterful wine to get our attention now.

The Parson Jones tree

2006-07-10T01:21:00.000-04:00

The sign for another huge old redwood. Several of the math challenged among us had problems figuring out what year the tree began growing. I won't give names.

A fallen redwood

2006-07-10T01:18:00.000-04:00

The Goat Man, looking very serious, poses in front of the stump of a fallen redwood tree.

So cute

2006-07-10T01:16:00.000-04:00

Look! We still like each other!

In the Armstong Redwood Preserve

2006-07-10T01:14:00.000-04:00

There are some REALLY fantastic trees here. Some are 1300 or 1400 years old, and over 300 feet tall. Unfortunately, it's really impossible to get a picture that accurately captures their majesty... so you'll have to settle for this sign.

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-10T01:11:00.000-04:00

At Armstrong Redwod preserve. We seem to get up later and later and drink less and less as time goes by but we still managed to get here after several hairpin turns. This is the only place in CA so far that we've encountered a rude person. When we were sitting in the car at the lot here, trying to get our bearings, a woman pulled up behind us and started beeping because she wanted our spot. When we said we weren't leaving, she made a rude comment. Oona, as usual, was ready to take her down.

Step AWAY from the melon

2006-07-09T02:30:00.000-04:00

The horrifying midnight watermelon massacre! If you look out the window over Mark's shoulder, you might be able to see a shadow of a half-goat, half-man creature leering in. There were some strange rustlings in the bushes outside the house last night. Maybe the goat-man legends are true. We will have to have the picture enhanced in order to see if the horrifying image is real or just a lighting trick. Perhaps we don't even want to know the truth.

Afternoon tasting

2006-07-08T19:45:00.000-04:00

The door to the Peju winery. Whatever you do... Do not go in. Even the tasting room guy described the wine as Kool Aid. Gorgeous grounds, horrible wines. Later today we went to a place called "The Cellar Door" which was sort of a wine co-op tasting room containing wines from five different family-owned wineries. They take turns working in the tasting room. The guy serving us was the owner/winemaker of the Sunrise Cellars winery. It was great to be able to try the wines and talk with the guy who had made them. We bought his award winning Barbera - a big, interesting wine that you usually only find as part of a blend.

Peju Winery

2006-07-08T19:41:00.000-04:00

Peju winery. We went because it had apparently won awards. Ann's rating... "Peju, P.U." The wines were disappointing and incredibly overpriced.

Blurry, but happy

2006-07-08T19:37:00.000-04:00

Mmm, Mexican.

Mystery salsa

2006-07-08T19:36:00.000-04:00

There was an unusual spice in the salsa which drove Don to distraction. He had to taste the salsa like it was a fine wine until he was able to identify the mysetery spice. Wondering what it was? If we told you, it wouldn't be a mystery anymore.

Lunch

2006-07-08T19:33:00.000-04:00

Having a Mexican lunch. Ann had a delicious chicken tamale - tamales are hard to come by in NY. The food here was excellent, but after lunch (and the wine tasting we had before that), we were pooped.

Fermenting tanks

2006-07-08T17:21:00.000-04:00

Fermenting tanks at Sterling Vineyards. The wine ferments in these vats for several days (depending on whether it is a red or white) and then it is transferred to wood (oak) barrels. Strangely enough, we saw about a dozen cats roaming around down there. When we asked the guide about them, he got kind of nervous and muttered something about "organic control methods". Not long after, all the cats ran under one of the tanks as if they were chasing something.

Picture from the gondola ride

2006-07-08T17:19:00.000-04:00

View from the tram. Just off to the right, out of this picture, are the ambulence and the police car that arrived after Oona's "incident" at the tram station. It turned out that the man was ok. Luckily he had a pretty good attitude about the whole thing and he decided not to press charges. We were obviously relieved. No vacation is complete without a run-in with the law. Way to go Oona!

Sterling Vineyards Tram

2006-07-08T17:17:00.000-04:00

On the tram at Sterling Vineyards. This is after Oona nearly threw several people to the floor in her rush to make sure that we didn't miss the "earlybird special" that would give us half price admission. We made it... by a minute and a half. Oona was happy all day about this.

Shakespeare in the Sierra Foothills

2006-07-08T02:57:00.000-04:00

Mark drove us to the Sierra Foothills to see an outdoor production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. There were only about thirty people in the audience. It was great! The mosquitos were as big as mountain lions and strange shrieks pierced the darkness of the woods, but the show must go on. Upon arrival (at the last minute of course) we were naturally greated with a resounding cheer from the enthusiastic people working the box office. Of course the New Yorkers within us immediately sensed a trap at this curious display of spontaneous enthusiasm. Where is the angle here? But as it turned out, they were just friendly people. Imagine that.

Chateau St. Jean

2006-07-07T18:57:00.000-04:00

Oona after the wine tasting. Seriously, this is a statue of Jean herself. We all showed up ready with our finest French accents to impress the people at the vineyard with our knowledge of the nuances of pronounciation of "Chateau St. Jean" only to discover that they pronounce the "Jean" like the "Jean" in "Blue Jeans". We managed to scam two free wine tastings, that included some of the best wines we have ever had the pleasure to taste. Wow. Chataeau St. Gene was a hoot.

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-07T17:04:00.000-04:00

Tasting at Chateau st Jean

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-07T16:25:00.000-04:00

Bob, our wine tasting guy. Boy was he funny!!! And the wine was great.

The Tasting Patio

2006-07-07T16:10:00.000-04:00

On the tasting patio. Somehow we managed to scam our way into a free reserve wine tasting in a special section of the visitors' center where we actually got to sit down (most wine tastings are done standing at a bar - I guess to rid you of any expectations that you can linger) and be served small bits of some of the best wines of the world. In the distance are some of the very vines from which one of the wines we drank emerged.

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-07T15:02:00.000-04:00

Chateau St. Jean Tower

2006-07-07T14:59:00.000-04:00

We learned from the tour that this is the very same tower where Alan Morrison, the original owner of the vineyard in 1823 held out against angry villagers for three days by throwing wine bottles at the only entrance you can see at the bottom. The devout villagers of this Quaker community came to believe that Morrison had made a pact with the devil. Some even claimed that he was growing a tail. At the end of the third day of the "Siege of St. Jean" as it has become known, three villagers managed to find a secret entrance into the tower through a long forgotten system of caves under the vineyard. Morrison was never seen again, although there were scattered reports (none of them believed to be credible) of a "goat man" roaming the vineyard late at night.

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-07T14:57:00.000-04:00

Chateau St Jean

Cooking with Don

2006-07-07T13:44:00.000-04:00

Don attacks an innocent tomato.

The morning after

2006-07-07T13:36:00.000-04:00

After a great night of sleep, Oona and I hit the hot tub with our coffee this morning. Sorry, but we did not get a picture of that.

Look at the size of Oona's wine glass

2006-07-06T23:39:00.000-04:00

Oona, extolling the virtues of comfortable lawn furniture.

Dinner jokes

2006-07-06T23:35:00.000-04:00

Mark, trying to remember the punch line to a bad joke.

Dinner wine

2006-07-06T23:33:00.000-04:00

Our wine with dinner. This Syrah was quite good - possibly better than the reserve wines we tried today at the Benziger winery.

Don doing the guy thing

2006-07-06T23:06:00.001-04:00

Don manning the grill.

The moveable feast

2006-07-06T23:06:00.000-04:00

The feast. Cooked by Don.

Thursday evening wine and guacamole

2006-07-06T23:03:00.000-04:00

Oona making guacamole after a dip in the hot tub.

Oona hits the hot tub

2006-07-06T20:12:00.000-04:00

Oona hits the hot tub. She managed to get in before me. How can that be?

Hot tub!

2006-07-06T19:54:00.000-04:00

The hot tub beckons....

Back "home" after wine tasting

2006-07-06T19:45:00.000-04:00

Back at home. Our cute, but messy room.

Emily - we're thinking of you!

2006-07-06T19:05:00.000-04:00

This one is for Emily, queen of olives.

Vineyards, vineyards, everywhere...

2006-07-06T18:57:00.000-04:00

Vineyards, as far as the eye can see. Benziger had several good wines but not quite at the level of the Gunlach Bundshue wines.

No thanks!

2006-07-06T18:48:00.000-04:00

Ann did not like the sound of this.

Fruit of the Gods

2006-07-06T18:43:00.000-04:00

Grapes growing at the Benziger winery. Their grapes are grown organically.

Grapegal among the grapes

2006-07-06T18:40:00.000-04:00

Ann among the vines.

Mark's new home

2006-07-06T18:33:00.000-04:00

A place for Mark.

Nymphs?

2006-07-06T18:31:00.000-04:00

Ann finds her haven.

Benziger Family Winery

2006-07-06T18:27:00.000-04:00

Benziger tasting room.

Lunch in the vineyards

2006-07-06T16:35:00.000-04:00

Picnicing at the benziger winery.

Vineyards

2006-07-06T16:29:00.000-04:00

The vineyards at Beniger winery.

Recovering after our first wine tasting

2006-07-06T15:28:00.000-04:00

After the wine tasting. We tried some astounding wines. One was a seventy dollar reserve cabernet that was probably the best wine I have ever had.

Mural at the winery

2006-07-06T15:25:00.000-04:00

Mural at the winery.

Wine caves

2006-07-06T15:23:00.000-04:00

The gundlach wine caves.

At our first winery - Gun Bun

2006-07-06T14:12:00.000-04:00

At the Gundlach Bundschu winery

Living room

2006-07-06T13:16:00.000-04:00

Our cottage

2006-07-06T13:15:00.000-04:00

Our living room. We don't actually use it because the kitchen is far more fun to hang out in.

The glorious hot tub

2006-07-06T13:06:00.000-04:00

Our hot tub... Woo hoo!!

Never enough chips

2006-07-06T13:03:00.000-04:00

Drat! We surely did not get enough chips.

Kitchen

2006-07-06T13:02:00.000-04:00

The deck

2006-07-06T13:00:00.000-04:00

Our deck and BBQ.

Out the front door

2006-07-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

Why can't I have a kitchen like this at home?

2006-07-06T12:56:00.000-04:00

Kitchen

2006-07-06T10:27:00.000-04:00

Pictures in and around our cottage.

We LOVE this wine

2006-07-06T10:23:00.000-04:00

We drank this Gundlach Bundschu Merlot after dinner in our candle filled dining room in the cottage. It was superb.

After Thai food

2006-07-06T02:34:00.000-04:00

Oona after the Thai dinner.

Before Thai food

2006-07-06T02:32:00.000-04:00

Oona before our wonderful Thai dinner.

Entering our new home

2006-07-05T23:15:00.000-04:00

Our cottage

2006-07-05T23:13:00.000-04:00

Our home for the next few days.

Recognize this bridge?

2006-07-05T20:40:00.000-04:00

Who's that handsome guy?

2006-07-05T20:37:00.000-04:00

Mark looking cool.

Admiring the Victorians

2006-07-05T20:35:00.001-04:00

Typical San Fran building

As we were driving over it...

2006-07-05T20:35:00.000-04:00

THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

Climbing hills

2006-07-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

Up and down many hills and here we are at the presidio... I think. The walk was incredible. Straight up.

Admiring the bathroom

2006-07-05T17:57:00.000-04:00

Even the restaurant bathrooms in San Fran are beautiful. Only I would bother taking a picture of one though.

Slate tile floor for Oona

2006-07-05T17:56:00.000-04:00

Oona LOVED the gorgeous slate tile in the spotless bathroom. There was even a candle in there.

Garibaldi's Restaurant

2006-07-05T17:53:00.000-04:00

What a fantastic lunch. Oona had a grilled chicken sandwich with brie and apples. I had a field greens salad with chicken, apricots, and candied walnuts...mmm. Amazingly, our GPS system in the car found this restaurant for us.

Eating AND drinking

2006-07-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

At Garibaldis having a great lunch. Don had a turkey sandwich with bacon, avocado, and jack cheese. Mark had a portobello mushroom sandwich on a toasted roll.

Over there!

2006-07-05T17:45:00.001-04:00

Oona pointing out a cool tree.

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-07-05T17:45:00.000-04:00

Jews! Stay out of Golden Gate Park.

Mark is just a bit too pale

2006-07-05T17:07:00.000-04:00

Mark, I told you some sun would be good for you.

Up and Over

2006-07-05T16:51:00.000-04:00

Mark and Don have no fear of tall Japanese bridges.

Mark finds his inner Buddah

2006-07-05T16:50:00.000-04:00

Who is the cute guy with Mark?

Enjoying the scenery

2006-07-05T16:44:00.000-04:00

We love the gardens.

A picture says a thousand words...

2006-07-05T15:28:00.000-04:00

Dr Suess would love these

2006-07-05T15:26:00.000-04:00

Ann being one with the Bonsai.

Japanese Gardens at Golden Gate Park

2006-07-05T15:17:00.000-04:00

Japanese garden

Golden Gate Park

2006-07-05T15:15:00.000-04:00

At the Japanese gardens in Golden Gate park.

Mark!!!

2006-07-05T14:48:00.000-04:00

Hey Mark ... What is with the inappropriate brochure in your pocket? Oona and I are NOT going there.

Art Deco building

2006-07-05T14:45:00.000-04:00

Art deco building.

San Fran architecture

2006-07-05T14:42:00.000-04:00

San Fran buildings are very clean.

Goodbye fancy hotel...

2006-07-05T14:33:00.000-04:00

Final view from hotel.

Robby the Robot

2006-07-05T14:29:00.000-04:00

Oona and Don make a new friend.

A new friend

2006-07-05T14:26:00.000-04:00

Me, Mark and Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet.

Citizens of San Francisco!

2006-07-05T14:24:00.000-04:00

Citizens of San Francisco.

Yerba Buena

2006-07-05T13:20:00.000-04:00