| California 2001 - Part Three
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Sunday, 19 August, 2001 - Napa/Sonoma
We met at 9:00 for breakfast - Jennifer had gone over to McDonald's and obtained breakfast sandwiches and real coffee. No offense to Sparky, but the HI Express coffee leaves a bit to be desired. We headed out to Matanzas Creek Winery in Sonoma - one of my favorites, with beautiful lavender fields on the slopes leading up to the winery. Gail was our tasting room representative and she was a bit off-putting and had no sense of humor. Nonetheless, she did provide comic relief (at her own expense) and the wines were excellent. Marc and Kathy bought two bottles of the Syrah and John and I each bought a magnum of the 1997 Merlot. I also bought some culinary lavender which smells wonderful.
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We traveled to BR Cohn Winery - Bruce Cohn was the Doobie Borthers manager and has a winery and olive grove. We tasted the wines, and I bought a case of the Reserve Chardonnay - I had bought some in April, but it was finished quickly. Unfortunately, they were sold out of their olive oil!
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Arrowood Vineyard was next, then we headed to Glen Ellen Village Market to pick up lunch supplies. Jennifer found several bottles of the BR Cohn Estate Olive Oil there, so we cleared the shelves. We grabbed a couple of salads, cold salmon, some bread, cheese and fruit, and John got a great "Jack London" sandwich. We had a bottle of Chandon Blanc de Noir from the day before that we had chilled, and we went to Kunde Winery and ate at their picnic tables next to the fountains. Beautiful.
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We tasted for a while at Kunde, then headed to northern Sonoma valley. We went to Ferrari-Carano, a spectacular setting, with manicured gardens, statues, fountains. We tasted several wines there - The Congers and Butlers each bought a cute wicker wine basket complete with compartments for the wine, glasses, corkscrew, etc., and Vicky bought a bottle to take back with her.
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We went to Dry Creek and tried their outstanding Reserve wines I had a case shipped to Mom and Dad's in April which I'll take home on the plane with me. John bought some nice posters for his wine cellar.
Our last stop - Chateau Souvrain. It was a lovely setting, but I was pretty "wined out" by that point. We drove back to the hotel - the guys swam - sorry, "Rocked the Holiday Inn Express pool" - and we had some of our left over cheese, bread and fruit and said goodbye to Vicky. Jennifer found a pizza place nearby - Mary's Pizza Shack - that really hit the spot. An early evening.
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Monday, 20 August, 2001 - Napa/Sonoma - Orange County
We had said goodbye to John and Jen the night before as they had an early flight out of San Fran. Kathy, Marc and I grabbed breakfast, bid farewell to Sparky and went to find a MailBoxes, Etc. to ship the two cases of wine. We found one in Santa Rosa - they gave us warnings about confiscation, we labelled it as olive oil, paid a lot of money and crossed our fingers.
We drove down the valley and stopped at Viansa, which has so-so wine, but a great gourmet shop. I re-stocked my kitchen and bought some presents, and we headed back down into the city.
Marc and Kathy dropped me at the United terminal and we said our goodbyes as they are heading back to Philly on US Airways. I found a little restaurant and had some chowder and shrimp salad for lunch, then caught my short flight down to Orange County. Mom met me at baggage claim and Dad was waiting out front with The New Car. Very nice! We drove home and had a relaxed evening - Mom made pork chops for dinner. I brought them a tape of the Iron Chef TV show which we watched and they found very amusing. Early to bed - guess I'm not quite on west coast time yet.
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