We’re Tasting in the Rain!
Laura and I are hanging in the California wine country this weekend, checking out some good restaurants and sipping some fine California wines. We’re staying at a romantic cottage-style bed and breakfast called Bungalows 313 in Sonoma, which was discovered on our behalf by our good friends Mer & Dave. Dave’s bachelor party, which included wives and soon-to-be-wives, involved racing high performance go carts at 120 mph around a track at Infineon raceway. The night before the event we spent a short night at the Bungalows, since we arrived late and were out again early to “go racing!” This was our weekend to rediscover the premises. Our conclusion: we like it here as much as we thought we would!
It’s been raining 2-3” per day for most of the last week, so it’s pretty quiet here in wine country, making it easy to hit wineries on the Silverado Trail that are usually overrun with tourist tasters. For today’s libation samples, we first went to Black Stallion, founded by the owners of a liquor store chain in Minnesota. I rate it S’Ok for its $50+/bottle price point. Then, it was on to Darioush which was founded by a Persian grocery store owner out of Los Angeles and is a clear Woo-Hoo!, albeit with $70+/bottle wines. It’s worth stopping at Darioush just to walk inside the palatial winery and tasting room. It appears that no expense was spared. Amazing. Crazy, but Amazing. Next on the trail for us was Chimney Rock, also with Woo-Hoo! wines that are priced commensurately. Here we met first time novelist David White and scored a signed copy of his new wine-country murder mystery, ‘The Good Life’. I’ll let you know how it reads! And finally, as we neared the maximum vino intake even for us, came ZD wines, which has some truly wonderful chardonnays and cabernets.
Of course, we had some great food while in the wine country, including a glorious dinner at Café La Haye in Sonoma, lunch at Meritage Martini and Oyster Bar in Sonoma, dinner at the Martini House in St. Helena and a truly remarkable Portuguese lunch at LaSalette in Sonoma. Check out my restaurant reviews for all of the details! Be sure to add Café La Haye and LaSalette to your list of places you must go. Both serve truly fantastic food in a friendly, casual environment and have the Zagat ratings to match.
Our weekend finished up at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Spa for a massage. This, of course, is the site of the infamous theft of every electronic device in my car when we stayed here about a year ago. I left my car with the valet and as we were pulling out the next morning, I noticed my GPS was missing. Oh crap, my phone charger is gone too. Heck, my phone is gone!! My iPod is gone!! Whew, at least my sunglasses are here. Apparently, I have great taste in electronics but crappy taste in glasses. In any case, management was ZERO help, so be forewarned. Secure your belongings and don’t use the valet!
– Chris