One of the British hack contingent is staying over for an extra week and her husband arrived yesterday. They’re staying with me for a few days so early Friday evening was spent frantically tidying up and cleaning.
Today however we got up early and headed up to wine country for a day’s sipping and (not) spitting.
The difference between the city and outside is amazing. The top of the Golden Gate Bridge was wreathed in fog as we drove underneath it but within minutes we’d emerged into bright (and burning) sun. From the rest of the day barely a cloud was seen and the temperature stayed in the upper 90s until dusk.
We took in a couple of Sonoma wineries (vineyard just isn’t said over her it seems), the Ravenswood and Imagine. We got lucky at Ravenwood, they were having a party and for $15 we could taste as many wines as we wanted and got to keep the glass – bargain. There was a good collection of Zinfandels and a very nice port but none of them really grabbed me.
Next stop was Imagine, just down the road. This had a much broader selection and I was very taken with a couple of the wines. Ended up blowing the budget and getting two bottles, one nice, one for special occasions, and a half bottle of port.
Imagine also has a policy of commissioning artists to do one off labels, and has a gallery of the best of the bunch. There are some stunning pieces of work there.
We stopped off at Napa after a hair-raising drive through the mountains. Normally we wouldn’t have driven so far but S decided the GPS was wrong, drove us in the wrong direction and we ended up at a dead end leading up a mountain.
After an excellent dinner, at which I had ostrich for the first time in ages and we shared another bottle of wine S, our designated driver, was getting sleepy so we headed home. After an hour trying to find a parking spot we made our way, in some cases unsteadily, to bed. A very nice day.
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