All Hail Pale Ale

Little did we know we would spend the next five hours on the WORST twisty mountain pass yet. Imagine Greg’s left hand on the wheel at 12:00, then 9:00, then 3:00 then back to 9 and back to 3 and back to 9 and then 3… and on and on.  No lie.  Then, imagine a two-lane road with a double yellow line morphing into a single lane (still two directions, mind you) over the steepest  of the mountain passes.  This pattern continued for about five hours.  We both had tunnel vision and could no longer distinguish inclines and declines.  Now, imagine how desperate we must have been to share a “YAY!” upon locating a nearby Walmart to serve as our campground for the evening.  It got worse…  Since we were starving, we decided to grab takeout from the nearest dining establishment.  McDonald’s. They even had to open back up for us and prepare our value meals after preparing to close for the evening. “At least you know it’s fresh”, the pubescent fella behingd the counter told us.  We had reached a new low.

Soooo excited!

There was a plus, however.  The next morning, we were only about 50 miles from the brewery.  Arriving at Sierra Nevada ahead of schedule allowed us ample time in the gift shop where Greg gleefully purchased a case of Life and Limb, the product of the collaborative efforts between Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada.

Our post-lunch journey toward wine country resulted in a pale-ale induced nap for me and an audio reunion with Rush for Greg.  The landscape slowly morphed from red woods to olive trees and grape vines.  We passed garlic fields, cherry orchards and almond groves.

grapes and grapes!

The climate was gorgeous and Greg actually said, “No wonder the grapes are happy here, I would be, too.”  Our Cloverdale KOA site was the perfect perch among the hills and vineyards to enjoy a heavenly 3 day stay.  We untethered dishes and wine bottles, opened windows vents and awnings, and let Luna loose in the grass.

With wonderful suggestions from friends on Facebook, Twitter, and in real life (!), Greg mapped out special vineyard visits and dining destinations, balancing upscale with modest modern, and hoity-toity with casual.  Each dinner or estate visit inspired a few purchases to fatten our wine cellar.  Greg even discovered a new signature wine, to be disclosed at a later time, after we tracked down a very special wine maker in the upstairs of an unmarked building in St. Helena.

Top secret tasting room

We were welcomed into the study-like room by an open door and a clip-board carrying figure inside proclaiming that we were indeed in the right place despite our hesitant snooping.  Let’s just say we secured a lovely special bottle of blended grapes that will remind us of our incredible journey on our first wedding anniversary.

wine before beer... in the clear?

Our wine tasting adventure began at Duckhorn, where we sat on a huge veranda and experienced the traditional tasting of 5 wines.  Greg kept saying, “This is exactly how I want our porch to be”. The estate was beautifully situated among the vines and landscaped with perfectly pruned shrubs and succulents.

Stone and leather and tobacco

Rubicon, the Niebaum-Coppola winery was our next stop. This winery and estate is owned by Francis Ford Coppola. The tasting room was reminiscent of a smartly merchandised haberdashery, or an underground distinguished gentleman’s club, garnished with stone and leather club chair clad details.  It could have been a castle or a movie set, it was so lavish and fancy.

The men of Page

Our final tasting that day was at Page in Yountville.  The tasting room was lit with a rotating disco ball, and the walls were tastefully adorned with framed albums of the Page brothers’ idols like Jimmy Page and Johnny Cash.  We very much enjoyed chatting with the young winemaker Brian and his marketing guy Trent, and as long as we stood there the pours remained bottomless.

Awaiting piggy rectangles

Greg helped unload a desk from one of their trucks as we killed time before our reservation at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon.  I would love to recount our wonderful dinner experience, but I was pretty toasty by that point and I don’t remember the details.  One thing I do recall is the perfect rectangle of crispy pork belly and it’s fleeting existence on Greg’s plate.

I guess our day was very successful!  Overall, each stop in our wine country extravaganza represented a different piece of our wine tour pie.  We will cherish the memories as we uncork our souvenirs in the upcoming months.

While it was very sad to conclude our stay in the land of grape bliss, my stomach could no longer tolerate the twisty roads from the passenger’s seat.  And so we continued south to San Francisco.  Our temporary home for the two nights we were there was an RV park directly across the street from Candlestick Park.  I can only imagine the tailgating that occurs there, and we were fortunate to arrive on a weekend with no football.  Once again we had a beverage and a bite with lovely local friends Heather and Eric who later took us to a speakeasy of sorts.  Did I mention our honeymoon has been more about food and drink than it has been about seeing the American terrain?  Yes, drinks across America.

Greg, being the planner that he is, mapped out a day-long trek through San Fran hitting all our desired points.

We were in and out!

We started with an in-and-out burger lunch (strictly for fuel, of course… those hills don’t exactly have chair lifts) and a couple of Irish coffees at the Buena Vista.  The white-coated, white-haired (parted in the middle!) bartender has literally been there since 1973.  The lady next to me casually inquired why he had never left and he nonchalantly answered, “Look at my view.”  It IS called the Buena Vista after all. Greg posted some real-time observations on Twitter.

Next, we hopped on a cable car where we hung off the back and savored the smell of burning wood when the conductor tugged on the brakes.  Trekking over to Rare Device and some other special boutiques Greg and I stopped to listen to some Sunday jazz outside a brunch establishment in Japantown when I felt a tap tap tap on my shoulder.  Of all the hundreds of thousands of people in the city I ran into ONE that I knew!  Unbelievable!  I continued to drag Greg along on my boutique trail when, to my delight, he ended up loving one on the list.  Timeless Treasures – where owner and host Joan talked to us at length about the gorgeous letters and numbers big and small that she has collected for years from French flea markets and abandoned theaters, was overrun with charm and whimsy.

letters and letters!

Greg’s preoccupation with digging through her alphabetized bins allowed me proper time to take in her clever merchandising and educated selection of goods.

With our shopper’s highs, we cabbed it over to Rogue for some beer (are you surprised?) before our imminent crab feast at the wharf.  Whew!  Our one day San Fran excursion was a whirlwind.

I will have one more post rounding out this leg of our trip, which is quickly drawing to a close (we arrive home in Philly on 11/28!) Greg has a lot of video to edit and post as well, so stay tuned.