A Sonoma Adventure

We've been to lots of places in California to drink wine.  We've done wineries in Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, and Napa.  Somehow along the way we had just missed Sonoma -- and it was time to change all that.






The trip did not start off terribly well.  Indeed, it was a misery.  The 90 mile or so trip from SFO to Sonoma took us 3 1/2 hours.  Traffic across the Golden Gate and up 101 was insanely bad.  Adding to our unhappiness, when we arrived at our B&B (Auberge on the Vineyards) we were ... displeased.  Both of us thought the room smelled as though some animal had come in to piss inside.  Not a great end to a long day.  [To be fair, however, to the Auberge, it had great views and our breakfasts were very fine -- but that didn't quite make up for the accommodations -- we slept with the windows open for a reason.


Happily, the rest of the trip was much better.  The wine and the food were interesting and different.  Herewith a report.

Let's start with the wine.  To understand Sonoma you have to know that it is really a great deal larger and more diverse in climate than Napa.  We stayed in Cloverdale at the far north end, and the distance south to Santa Rosa at the bottom is more or less 45 miles.  Lots of micro climates around.  By way of example, Knights Valley, in the south, gets fog up from the Bay every morning -- the wines there are fuller and more fruity because of the water content.  Similarly, Alexander Valley in the north is a big wide valley with a flat floor -- again creating richer, wetter wines.  By contrast on the west side of 101 over the ridge is Dry Valley -- and as the name suggests it is much hotter and drier and the wines are hence more concentrated -- the fruits get sharper (think blackberry instead of cherry). 

The other big difference from Napa is that, at least in our perception, Sonoma is a lot less corporate.  Many more small vineyards with oddities of style.  Many fewer of the very large wine tasting rooms where the people are herded along like cattle.  Much more attention to detail in the wine making (at least that is our sense).  But also a LOT harder to wrap your hands around -- in two days we barely scratched the surface because the wine making is so diffuse and spread out physically and so varied stylistically.

We began our first day in Sky Pine Vineyards – which styles itself as the highest (in altitude!!) Bordeaux blending vineyard in the Alexander Valley.  The owners, Tim and Kandy, are a hoot.  Tim is a lawyer who has no filter – he will say just about anything that crosses his mind – including, for example, trash talking other vineyards in the area.  They served us a vertical of Cab Franc (2010, 11, 13 and 14) that really showed how variable the wines could be season to season based on weather, etc.  We found the 2013 particularly rich and well-rounded with a bit more depth than the other years.  All, however, were quite good and who could dislike a wine whose name is “BobDog” (after their dog … yes, named Bob).

Our next stop was a bit disappointing.  The J.K Rickards vineyard was nice enough and the tasting room was professional if a bit antiseptic.  The wines, however, were only so-so.  We did find two that were worth mentioning --- a 2014 Zinfandel that had nice fruit and notes of chocolate; and the 2014 Petite Syrah that was inky rich in color and taste – and had the distinction of being made with a  wild yeast.  Overall, nice to stop at but no miracles.

The surprise/winner of the day was a collective tasting room in Geyserville.  Geyserville is a small (two road) town off of 101.  Several dozen of the very small boutique wineries in the Alexander Valley have gotten together and started a place known as “Locals” (of course – what a perfect name) where they don’t charge a tasting fee and have an unusual variety of things to try.  If you can’t find something new here then you are far more sophisticated than we were. For us, the really odd discovery was the Sargentino grape – a rare Italian varietal (we were told) that was being cultivated by the Dernier-Hadal winery.  How do we know this?  Well, the person doing the pouring was Mr. Dernier – we had the pleasure of his hosted tasting of several of his varietals.  In addition to the Sargentino, his Petite Syrah was stellar – complex fruits with a certain sharpness that we found appealing.  And we also found a really fantastic Cabernet Sauvignon from Pendleton that we brought home with us.

One fun fact about Locals – they have a club.  They will send you two (or 6) randomly selected bottles from their dozen or so consortium members every quarter.  Our sons don’t know it yet, but their birthdays are coming early this year.

Sunday saw us go in a different direction – to the Dry Creek Valley.  Hoping to recreate the magic of the day before we stopped at a roadside collective tasting room known as “Family.”  Here we didn’t have vintner to chat with but we did have two servers and nobody else in the room for the entire time we were there.  Needless to say, they were happy to pour and keep on pouring and we spent a boozy 90 minutes with them. 

Happily, it wasn’t just about the alcohol – we found a couple of other small gems.  Again, none of these are available in DC, or frankly anywhere other than this one tasting club.  But they do ship .. .so … we ordered some.  Winners in this category – a 2015 Viognier from Philip Staley that had some wonderful fruit; and a 2014 Vino Tinto that mixed Grenache, Carinena, Mataro and Tempranillo), also from Staley; the 2014 Pinot Noir and the 2012 Merlot both from Mietz Cellars (HT: Steve V for the suggestion); and our favorite in the group, the meritage “Comet” from Dashe Cellars.  This last one had a particularly earthy tone to it that brought out much of the dry and dark side of the wine.

The other joy of the day was finding Thumbprint Cellars.  Once again, we lucked in and found the owner, Scott (that's him to the right), at home and he spent a long while pouring for us. Thumbprint has a tasting room in down town Healdsburg, but it has no grapes of its own.  Instead, Scott takes his grapes from other places, and just makes really really good wine.  His 2012 Petite Sirah uses grapes from Smith Ranch and came out of the bottle nearly black.  I tasted blueberry, cherry and a bit of dirt or dust.  We also loved the 2013 Carignane from Angeli Vineyards – berrys with a spice and floral riff that was wonderful.  Katy loved the 2014 Viognier and Paul was partial as well to the 2013 Cabernet Franc (which even had a whiff of sage to it, I think).  To all this add the story of the cellar and the name (an accident) and you get a great time with good wine and good company (and also live acoustic guitar music).

Our food experience was almost as good as the wine (if that is possible).  We began with a coffee shop – we took a long walk into Cloverdale each morning and found Plank – the artisanal coffee shop – waiting for us at the end.  Well brewed coffee with a barrista flair if that is what you want.

We had three very nice dinners while in town.  The first was at the Healdsburg SHED – essentially an organic food store with cooking gear and a kitchen.  It’s the type of place that a bouquet of fresh herbs and spices sits on the counter top and the kitchen staff picks from it to garnish as the plates get prepared.  The appetizers were great – Paul had an heirloom beet salad and Katy had roasted carrots with dates.  The mains were a little less perfect – Katy’s duck was just too dry.  But the wine list was pleasant and we had a nice glass.

Our second night was at Café Lucia also in Healdsburg.  Lucia is a Portuguese restaurant so, of course, we went in that direction.  There were several good, unusual Portuguese wines available in 3 oz pours (at least to us – we’d never heard of them) so we had fun trying out a bunch of new tastes with new vintners and grapes.  It was actually a welcome change from the heavier fruityier California wines we’d been drinking all day.  And Paul’s Linguisa sausage was …. Just perfect.

The star dinner, however, was at Willi’s Wine Bar (HT: Reg B).  We started with a flight of bubbly of which the Iron Horse Russian Cuvee was the best (crisp and fruity but with a “tang”).  We followed with tastes of the Malat Grunier Vetliner from Austria and the Black Kite Pinot Noir from California.  The Black Kite, in particular, stood up to the spice of the meal surprisingly well.  The two food highlights were a Curried Crab Taco and Lamb Tartare.  We had great seats outdoors and it was a great way to end the trip.

Monday on the way back to the working world was magical.  We left very early (6 AM) with Plank coffee in our hands.  And Mr. Waze detoured us through the wetlands at the north of the bay to Vallejo and then across the Napa River and down south on the outer loop 660.  With fog rolling in and wildlife flying it was quite saddening to leave Sonoma behind.  We expect to go back though.

Pinch us --- We Are On the West Coast

OK ... so pinching isn't really necessary.  But sometimes you have a great few days that really "sing" and you wonder how it is that you are so lucky.  The last few of these have been like that.

It started Thursday with a flight to San Francisco.  Paul had been invited to participate in a symposium on cybersecurity being sponsored by the Stanford Journal on International Law.  It was really quite a prestigious invite.  The keynote address was delivered by the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, Dr. Hamadoun Toure.  The ITU is at the center of some political controversy over its efforts to "regulate the internet."   To be honest, Paul went to the meeting very skeptical of the ITU's efforts, but both he and Katy came away rather more impressed with Dr. Toure than before.  He may be wrong, but he seems quite sincere.  That's Paul and Dr. Toure in the photo.

Other attendees at the conference included Howard Schmidt, President' Obama's first CyberCzar and, most amusingly, Marc Rogers, whose claim to fame is that he is the Chief Security Officer at DEFCON.  [For those who don't know, DEFCOM is the uber-Hacker convention, and being chief of security there is a little like being the bouncer at a bordello -- very challenging indeed.].   Overall, the quality of the discourse was high and we enjoyed ourselves greatly.

Of course, no trip to the Bay area would be complete without good food, and the Standford journal did not disappoint.  We had dinner Thursday night at Tamarine which featured a nouvelle Vietnamese tasting menu.  The tamarind shrimp was truly special.  Then on Friday night we went out with colleague/friends, Brian and Cynthia, who took us to their favorite restaurant in San Francisco -- Kokkari.   Kokkari is an upscale Greek place -- Paul had goat stew and Katy had the brazzino.  You can tell we liked it -- we lingered for 3 hours drinking wine, eating and chatting.

But the highlight so far, at least from an intellectual perspective, was breakfast Saturday morning at Coupa Cafe.  Not because the food was good, though it was, or that the coffee was truly excellent, though it was as well.  The highlight was our chance to have a nice engaging chat with Whit Diffie, who we had met earlier at the Standford conference.   If you don't know who he is -- click on the link!  Suffice it to say that if you use on-line banking or credit card services, its secure because of him.  In the cryptology world, he is a big deal.  But he is also, in the end, a really fun fellow to talk to -- full of off-the-wall ideas and stories.  It was just delightful to have breakfast with him.

And now, we are in Napa.  We spent the afternoon at two wineries -- our old favorite, Casa Nuestra, which is a nice "hippie place" and a new one for us -- Alpha Omega.  The AO bottling of ERA (their name) is really special.  We had a chance to taste a barrel sample and ordered 3 bottles on the spot.  That's Katy taking the barrel sample.

Now we are happily ensconced in our delightful B&B (the Oleander House) and relaxing waiting for dinner.

Adelaide and the Yoda of Wine

We spent two days in Adelaide, which is a quiet city near some of Australia's best wine country. To start with let us commend the hotel -- the Sebel Playford. It was really a wonderful gem of a hotel to stay at. The staff were friendly and helpful, the breakfast buffet was sumptuous, it was centrally located, and they gave us a nice upgrade to a better room. Who could ask for anything more?

Adelaide itself is set out on a grid. The northernmost street is North Terrace. No points for guessing what the East, West, and South-most streets are called. Notably, however, on the outside of the 4 terraces it is all parkland -- so the city sits neatly inside a protected green space. Makes it a small, but pleasant place.

On the first day we went walking (despite the poor weather) and had some fun at a couple of the museums. We saw some good Australian art (both native and settler) at the South Australia art gallery and a fine exhibit on Aboriginal culture at the South Australia natural history museum. The day ended with a pleasant dinner in the parklands overlooking a lake, where Katy had barramundi and Paul ate kangaroo for the first time.

But the highlight of the time in Adelaide was, of course, the wine country. On the second day we went to the McLaren Vale. There are some fantastic boutique wineries there. So much so that we bought 3 bottles for suit case imports to the States from Kay Brothers, Samuel's Gorge and Perritinga.

But the highlight of the trip, sure, was our lunch at the d'Arenberg winery. Besides the fact that the food was quite good and the tasting flight of their best wines a great accompaniment, the bonus attraction was the man at the next table -- Barry d'Arenberg, third-generation wine maker. We actually had met him 8 years ago when he came to DC and hosted a wine tasting at Blackie's House of Beef, that we remember as one of the best wine tastings we've ever gone to. And there he was at the table next to us. He's retired now and his son Chester runs the business -- but he is still on site. We sort of think of him as a "Yoda" of wine making -- you can almost hear him saying "trust the grapes Luke" or something like that -- because they make really, really good wine there!

And so, we told him how much we liked his wine and asked him to take a picture with us, which he graciously did. Later, as we left, we saw him tooling around on a tractor cutting the grass -- a real "regular" guy. Since going to d'Arenberg was one of the plans for the day, meeting Barry just put a cherry on top!

36 Hours in Napa

We've always been winos, in the good sense of the term. So its kind of surprising that we've never been to Napa Valley to go wine tasting. After we dropped Jo off at the airport, we set out to remedy that gap in our travel resume.

We set out in our rented car (a Prius, naturally) across the Bay Bridge and up to Napa. It's actually a remarkably short trip -- maybe 80 minutes with no traffic. But Napa is really a LOT farther away from San Francisco than that, in its atmosphere and culture.

Our first stop was the Napa Valley Lodge -- our hotel for the night. NVL is actually in Yountville, which is a small town about 1/2 way up the valley between Napa in the south and Calistoga in the north. NVL is pleasant enough and has some nice rooms, but its location is a bit challenging since it is literally the first building off the main highway (Rt 29) and through the night we often heard farm trucks shifting the gears as they drove by. On the whole a nice place, but if we go back to Yountville, we'll try somewhere else.

After checking in, it was off for an afternoon of wine tasting. We started at Goosecross Cellars, a small family winery just outside of Yountville. The tasting room is in a small cottage that you get to by driving down a lane through the vineyard. Very cozy place. The day we were there we were alone in the tasting room and had a leisurely time of it. We were blown away by a couple of wines, particularly their Howell Cabernet and so we joined the wine club here. [As a sign of remarkable coincidence, roughly 3 hours after I drafted this sentence, a gift arrived from Goosecross -- one of their Howell's! Now we really are in love]

Then it was on to Casa Nuestra, an even smaller winery just up the road that seems like it is stuck in the 1960s -- all funky and stuff. For example, they had a great Tinto wine that is "field blend" meritage. In other words, the proportion of different grapes reflects what is grown, not some calculated mix. This year's Tinto had a great deep taste. We also liked their dry Riesling. But what really knocked our socks of was the Zinfandel. We went back into the barrel rooms and got a barrel tasting -- they've never done a Zin before, but this one sure had power. We bought the next to last case and .. .yes, joined their wine club too!

Third and last stop was the Peju Winery -- far and away the most elegant winery we went to, but also the most commercial. They had 8 tasting tables up and gave us some light pours of the cheap stuff. We stuck around afterwards and made them give us some of their reserves -- we especially liked their 50/50 Cab Sauv/Cab Franc blend. If this were our first stop we'd probably not have bought anything, but we were a bit light headed by this point, so we ordered a few bottles anyway.

Then it was back to Yountville. We hadn't gotten into the French Laundry (nearly impossible) so we "settled" for Bistro Jeanty down the street. The food was exceedingly good and surprisingly reasonable in price. It was a traditional bistro fare (boudin, steak fritte, etc.) which was a bit heavy on our stomachs after the wine tasting -- but the tastes were great. If I had to do it over again, I'd have skipped the Cassaoulet, not because of how it tasted but just because it was so heavy.

The next morning was wonderful. We got up early for a walk, bought a copy of the NY Times at stopped at Bouchon Bakery for some fresh baked croissants and coffee. Nothing beats sitting outside on a sunny day reading the paper and drinking coffee. We spent the remainder of the morning doing some light art shopping and then finished the day off with a wonderful lunch at Hurleys -- a patio eatery that serves organics. No better end to the visit than a fresh glass of Chardonnay and some crab cakes.

Alas, the trip was all too short. After lunch we headed back to the airport and were homeward bound. But we were certain of one thing -- this is the type of place we will try to get back to.