Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Wine Country - Sonoma Valley

My old housemate Rosie (from Norwich) arrived last week after a conference in Hawaii (ah the tough life of a Ph.D. student) and with our impeccable taste (not?!) in fine wines we spent the weekend in the Sonoma Valley, an hour or so drive north of Berkeley. Sonoma Valley boasts over 200 of the worlds most award wining wineries and runs parallel to the larger and more famous Napa Valley but is equally beautiful in its own right. On the first day we visited Loxton (photo 1), one of the smallest wineries in the Valley, and were treated to several fantastic Syrah and Shiraz wines (photo 2). The pride and joy of the winery being a 2004 Syrah and at $24 a bottle who could resist. A picnic lunch followed and the $18 Shiraz was enjoyably consumed. We camped at the northern most end of the Valley in the Sugarloaf State Park and the weather was pretty much perfect - it has not rained here since May. In the evening, the space observatory in the Park was open to the public so we got to hang out with some astrology geeks for the night! Jokes aside there were some sweet images from the hubble space telescope being shown in a slide show , which was neat.

The next day, after a swift hike up Bald Mountain, with views of both the Napa and Sonoma Valleys (photo 3), we visited one of the largest wineries in Sonoma, the Cline Cellars (photo 4). We joined a coach party on a tour of the winery - strangely we did not seeing any of the actually wine making - clearly winery tour must have a different meaning in US english! Several wine tastes and minius $40 later we headed back to Berkeley with a couple of really cheeky bottles of red. That evening, my friend Colette threw a belated Canadian thanksgiving dinner. I never turn down free food, especially a good roast - and it was very good, thanks Colette! Whats good wine if not to share so we soon dispatched the last of the Sonoma wine. I have never spent that much money on wine before and probably wont again for a while until my wallet recovers and my pallet can no longer take the "2 buck chuck" that my current housemates insist on drinking!

Laters

Dave

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