vacation: wine time! Day 2 and 3

Day Two: Before having a little breakfast and heading out winery hunting again we took a little walk around the town of Santa Rosa where we were staying. Santa Rosa is a great location to stay. It provides easy access to both Sonoma (15 minutes to the East) and the Russian River Valley area (15 minutes to the North) and it is about $80 cheaper per night than staying right in either of those areas. So if you're planning on visiting wine country and want to maximize winery options, Santa Rosa is a nice place to rest your head.

We started the day heading to the town of Healdsburg which is a neat little town (Cedarburg-esque for those Milwaukee area people reading). We began at Lake Sonoma Winery which is the winery whose club I (currently) belong to. I'll be canceling after my next shipment because of the new club I had joined this trip. We tried a few, purchased a few and then headed across the street to Toad Hollow which is home to one of my favorite wines out there, their Private Reserve Pinot Noir. Delicious, but at $46 per bottle, I had to just taste, and move on. I could maximize my money elsewhere, which I did throughout the weekend. I think we brought back a little over a case which has become the standard for our trips out there. Of course, my lovely wife will have to wait before enjoying any until the little one is done marinating in her belly. :)

Another place I'd like to mention is Ferrari-Cerano winery. I think it is by far the most extravagant one we visited (doesn't mean it has the best wine though!). You can see from the front page of their website that it's gorgeous. Although you can see from the picture on the right that it depends on the weather. :) Inside, the place is just ridiculous. Marble and wood (I'm sure from only the finest trees that rain forests have to offer) everywhere. It really is beautiful. Their wine was pretty good. Apparently it's been served at Presidential dinners which means either A) it's really good or B) the made a large donation to that particular President. I'm going with B.

Day Three: We spent the third day in San Francisco which was a lot of fun also. We did a lot of the touristy things like staying down by Fisherman's Warf, going to Ghirardelli Square and riding the cable cars. Not to intentionally skip out on writing about it, but it was just a nice friends day. Sightseeing and talking. I'll let the pics below do the talking.

vacation: wine time!

A few weeks ago, we took a trip out to California to wine country with our good friends Emmett and Julie, who were taking their first real vacation without their little one, and our goddaughter, Harper. It was their first trip to that area whereas it was our third. I think it's safe to say that it's become a top destination of ours!

Day One: We spent the first full day of the trip in Sonoma visiting wineries, many of which we've been to before but just can't seem to get enough of. We started the day at Ledson (pictured) which is a smaller winery who, like many out there, only sell their wine at the winery. The grounds there are awesome as you can see and the people working the tasting room are great. Their really knowledgeable and friendly. It's a very impressive place which to me covers the fact that their wine is only average. They just try to do so much. No winery can be great at making almost ALL the different variatels, I don't care who you are.

The lowlight of the day became the highlight. Kirsten, who given our news that we're going to be parents became our designated driver on the trip, belongs to the wine club of SL Cellars, a great little winery known primarily for their sparkling wines, her favorite. We noticed when we got there that the front sign had changed and, to make a long story short, found out that they joined up with a group of other smaller wineries to become Family Wineries, a co-op designed to help promote the small wineries that are too small to operate their own tasting rooms. While it appeared to take a little bit of the "coolness" away of being a part of a little winery, we were introduced to Michelle, the lady running the tasting room. Michelle was great and whereas most wineries let you taste anywhere between 5-7 wines, we left there having tried 12(!) which was awesome. I ended up joining one of their clubs which will send me 2 bottles from 3 wineries, twice a year. Should be great.

We finished up the day having dinner at a great little restaurant called "The Girl and the Fig" right on the square in Sonoma. It's a fancier restaurant who takes their food and wine pretty seriously. It was delicious again (we had eaten there during our first visit to Sonoma) and our server was really interesting. She was probably about our age, cute, but very...intense. She ran an efficient area. I think that's the best way to put it.

Next, day two....

quick hits

• Please take some time today to observe a brief interval of time of quiet (moment of silence is getting overused) and reflect on this, the sixth anniversary of September 11. I was thinking about it on the way to work today but it didn't really hit me until I saw a large flag off the highway flying at half mast. That struck a cord.
  
  
• Note to Amy: Very nice to see you this past weekend! I'm glad you were able to come home and I was able to meet up and spend some time with you. Nice to meet Mike as well!
  
  
• T-minus 10 days until my next vacation. A weekend in wine country with my lovely wife, my sister and her husband. As a wine junkie, I'm REALLY looking forward to it. We'll be spending a full day in Sonoma and a full day in Russian River Valley. I'll be sure to post some pictures on here.
  
  
• How about them Packers? Ok, so it was hardly a convincing victory but as they say, a win is a win and I don't think too many people were picking them to come out of the gate and beat Philly in week 1. Nice start to a long season. Oh, and speaking of football, my fantasy team, Lynn's Dickey, dominated. Hopefully the sign of a great football season to come.
  
  
• Did anyone else see that train wreck on MTV the other night? Wow. Kirsten and I turned it on because she wanted to see Britney Spears open the show. Incredible. We were watching in silence and every once and a while we'd look at each other with a confused look on our faces. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. (I know I'm using the word 'mighty' loosely). Oh, and I'm not getting on the "she's fat" bandwagon. She has had two kids recently. I'm talking from a performer standpoint..yikes.
  
  

random thought

You know sometimes you instantly feel happy? You find yourself in a place where you're absolutely comfortable with where you are and what you are doing?

For example, getting to your seat at Lambeau Field on a 75 degree day and you take your first sip of beer. Well today I once again found myself feeling that way. There's nothing quite like walking around a wine store with a shopping cart. Just had a fabulous feeling and sense of pride of what I was about to accomplish...

Bottoms Up!

So as my week of work in San Francisco came to close, my trip west was far from over. Friday afternoon Kirsten flew out to San Francisco and from the airport we rented a car (nothing flashy, just a Hyundai for what we save in money there will be spent on wine) and immediately headed north to one of the major wine regions in California, Sonoma Valley.

As some of you know, I am a big wine drinker so next to Lambeau Field, a place like Sonoma is a top destination for me and it didn't disappoint regardless of the spotty weather. All week in San Francisco the weather was good. Not great, but not bad...50's. Friday night it began to rain and it let up only for about 8 hours on Saturday, which was JUST enough time for us to get our wine tasting in!

We started our day at the winery farthest from the town square in "downtown" Sonoma, Ledson Winery. Of course we had to start with the farthest and work our way back. Can't to the opposite and drive farther with the more we drink! I think Kirsten would agree with me that Ledson ultimately was the winery we enjoyed the most. The others were great, but Ledson was definitely memorable from the minute you roll up to the castle (pictured). We made our way to the tasting room with our 2-for-1 tasting coupon (they were available for most wineries) which was good for a five wine tasting. We happened to be the first ones there (at 10:45 AM) but what was great about that was that we had ALL the attention of the wine guys. We ended up tasting 8-9 wines there for a grand total of $5 (plus a $5 tip) which was a great deal.

Another one I'd like to highlight is SL Cellars which was recommended to us by Mike, our tasting dude at Ledson. SL Cellars is primarily known as a sparkling wine boutique winery which, like Ledson, only sells their wine either A) At the winery or 2) Over the phone/internet. Can't find it in stores. They also made a pretty stellar Pinot Noir that I enjoyed while Kirsten went nuts with their sparkling wines. She liked them so much that she joined their Wine Club so she'll be expecting 2 bottles every 6 months from there. I tasted one sparkling wine and three Pinot Noirs and Kirsten had about the same, except in reverse types and we paid a grand total of $0 ($5 tip) since we came from Ledson.

The friendly, generous people out there was definitely a trend and the fun we had was too good for words. We're definitely going back, hopfully sooner than later since we only hit about 10% of the wineries in Sonoma alone. I'd highly recommend it.

If you'd like to see more pictures, I've got them up on the website so enjoy. The site is still in it's very early stages so forgive me.