Time for some wine! - Napa and Sonoma

The South Redwoods coast is a beautiful drive along steep cliffs, with beach vistas and quirky villages sprinkled along the way. Apparently, it seems that life here totters --sometimes uncomfortably-- between gun-toting conservatives, ultra-left progressives, idealistic college students and logging companies.  Interestingly, one local high school even has a bull-riding team. Yeehaw!

For hours, I noticed a complete absence of chain stores or franchises  -- no hope for a Starbucks latté or a Big Mac here, folks. Totally cool with me. This area may not have a Walmart, but it's got character. 

  
Tiny, cute Mendocino. Despite its population of 1,000, it's full of locally-owned swanky restaurants and high-end boutiques, hence its nickname 'Spendocino'. I have yet to treat myself to such a nice dinner; that will probably come in San Fransisco.

New England-style water towers. No longer used, but well-preserved and charming. 

Point Arena Lighthouse

Salt Point State Park


About 45 minutes North of San Fransisco, which is just beyond that fog. This is as far South as I'm going for now.  I'm turning inland at Sonoma County and heading to my campground in Napa Valley.

Napa Valley. Over 273 wineries. Yes! 

To give you an idea of the types of auctions that take place here, a Bentley was donated to charity and auctioned off this week.

''Wine is sunlight held together by water.'' --Galileo

CALISTOGA

At the very North of the Napa Valley lies a charming, quaint town called Calistoga. I loved this little place, full of laid-back shops and restaurants, and surrounded by country roads with beautiful wineries and rows of vines climbing the hillsides.

I was so excited to see Chateau Montelena!  For those of you who didn't see the movie Bottle Shock, this is one of 2 wineries that beat out top French wines in a 1976 blind taste-test in Paris.  Chateau Montelena won 1st place with its Chardonnay (white) and Stag's Leap won 1st place with its Cabernet (red). At a time when wine-making was strictly dominated by the French, these results were both awe-inducing or revolting, depending which country you lived in. 

Bottle of Chardonnay from the winery's first-ever release in 1972.  The roster book shows that the bottle was selling for 6.00$, rather expensive for that time.

After getting over the shock of having somehow voted the 'dreadful' Californian wines into 1st place, a few French judges retorted that the red wines wouldn't age as well as the French ones, were the same test to be performed in the future. So, a second blind taste-test was carried out for its 30th anniversary, using the same vintages and the same judges as 30 years' previous. This time, the Top 5 red wines were all from California. Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall on that day; what a blow that must have been to the judges' bubbles.

CITY  OF  NAPA

I found parts of Napa to be quite swanky, but its center was run down. They obviously wish to cater to rich tourists, but unfortunately the local places have really been left to whither away. 

Below, the Oxbow Market in City of Napa. I was expecting it to be like a farmer's market but it was more or less pricey boutiques and restaurants. Nice place for a browse, though.

Interesting. Not sure I'd put a Hitler mustache on Obama. But it grabs your attention and attention was something these guys definitely got.

Cha cha cha art in Napa.

SONOMA VALLEY

Looks just like Napa Valley. Slightly less swanky vineyards / boutiques.

The oldest evidence of wine comes from excavations in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran and dates to about 5,500 BC. From then on, wine followed the intellectual and military power of each era, moving through Egypt, Greece and Rome and then to distant parts of their respective empires. Greek settlers first brought the wine to France in 600 BC. 

HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE

This was a great ride!  Very peaceful. I had expected it to be bumpy or jolting, but it was totally smooth.

PETRIFIED FOREST -  CALISTOGA
This was a rather mundane attraction that I found cool in principle but rather lackluster in terms of visuals. In this forest are 6-7 trees that were quite ancient in their day (about 2,000 yrs old). They were knocked flat by the volcanic blast of St. Helena's eruption about 3.5 million years ago, and completely covered in ash. Over hundreds of thousands of years, as mineral-rich water seeped through this ash, silica molecules eventually replaced the wood molecules, until the trees essentially turned into solid stone and quartz. (FYI, the word petrified means that organic cells have been replaced by minerals). Microscopically, these trees are quartz stone; it's pretty cool to touch and see.

My 4 days in the Napa Valley are over. I did quite a lot of things here: visited a few funky vineyards such as Lava Vine, hung around Calistoga, visited little towns in the area such as St. Helena, Yountville and Oakville.... It was chilled-out and relaxing, and I'm ready for San Fransisco. I will be meeting up with a gentleman that I met on the Camino -- Micheal -- who lives in the Marina district and is happy to play tour guide for a few days. It will be good to see a familiar face.

Hope everyone is doing well. Don't forget to drop a line!  

Love you all, xxx