Calistoga – Riveted

Whoa. That’s a lot of rain.

Laura Domela — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 22:27:33 +0000

Last night in Calistoga (after we got back from our lovely nighttime bike-to-the-market trip to stock up on some quality groceries) it started raining again pretty heavily. I woke up in the middle of the night because it was INSANELY loud and I opened the Accuweather app on my iPhone to see what it was doing out there, and it looked like this:

Yep, I'd say that matched perfectly what it sounded like on the aluminum. This morning our campsite was basically a lake and we had a bit of a soggy departure. The drive through St. Helena, Yountville, and Napa was pretty, like this:

The storm followed us ("Ruuuunnnn! It's coming!!!")

(Note: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.)

We're in San Jose now for some work and it's been raining pretty much nonstop. Good thing we're here for work and not fun. We'll try to have some of both!

Last Day in Calistoga

Laura Domela — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 22:00:13 +0000

Today we rode our bikes over to Chateau Montelena.

If you've seen the movie Bottleshock, or if you know about the 1976 Paris blind tasting upset (also known as the "Judgment of Paris") when a California Chardonnay won first prize over its French competitors (unthinkable!), then you'll probably have heard of this winery.

The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 or the Judgment of Paris was a wine competition organized in Paris on 24 May 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, in which French judges carried out two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality Chardonnays and another of red wines (Bordeaux wines from France and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from California). A California wine rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines. Spurrier sold only French wine and believed that the California wines would not win. [Wikipedia]

The grounds are spectcular.

The Chardonnay they make today is apparently made in the same style as the 1973 Chardonnay that won the Paris tasting, and it was very good! We also really liked the 2010 Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cute sticker on the bike rack:

From there we headed back to camp, worked some more, then went to our 2pm tour appointment at Reverie, up on Diamond Mountain.

Reverie is one of Napa Valley’s smallest estate wineries. The vineyard is nestled on a steep, 40 acre parcel high up in the Diamond Mountain appellation (we did not ride bikes up here), and the wine they produce is wonderful. We started our tasting outside with Sara (She's awesome! Hi Sara!) and then headed into the caves.

A French oak barrel. These cost about $1200 and can be used once or twice:

Kevin in the caves with oak and temperanillo:

Our favorite wines of this tasting were the Petit Verdot, the 2008 Cabernet, and the Reserve Cabernet. The tour was fun and educational and I would highly recommend making a reservation here at Reverie if you're in Calistoga. It was one of our favorites!

Next was a wine and cheese pairing/tasting at The Von Strasser Winery (right next door to Reverie, also up on Diamond Mountain).

John was our guide and gave us a nice tour and took us into the caves and to a small table for our tasting.

It was just the three of us so we had a time for some fun casual conversation, as well as learning about the Von Strasser wine and winemaking. Our favorites here were the 2009 Sori Bricco Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2009 Spaulding Cabernet Sauvignon.

Back at the Airstream now. I think we're going to grill some salmon and some veggies, and then ride bikes to the market later to get some groceries before heading out tomorrow morning. We've had such a nice time here in Calistoga and it definitely feels like it's going to become of the "regulars" now. (You know, the places you return to over and over again.)

Happy Friday everyone!

The Calistoga Cool Wine Tour

Laura Domela — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 23:55:50 +0000

Today we got up early and worked until just before noon, and then headed over to the Calistoga Bike Shop where we were going to start our tour. They've partnered with five Calistoga wineries and will plan a trip for you where they map out your ride and give you tips for places to eat or grab picnic supplies along the way. You can ride a few miles, or you can ride 20, like we did. Here's a map of our ride (we covered a lot of Calistoga!):

Our first stop was Tedeschi Family Winery. This is a small, family-run winery making old-world style wines by hand. Great first stop! Bought some wine. Oh yeah, the other thing about the Calistoga Cool Wine Tour is that the bike shop will go around and pick up whatever you buy and have it waiting for you at the shop when you get back.

Second stop was Summers Winery – seems like there's' no bad wine in this valley! Bought some wine.

Third stop was the highly recommended taco truck:

Looks just like you'd expect:

It's actually called La Gitana Tacos, and the tacos are fantastic! We tried a few: chorizo, carnitas, pastor, y asada. They were so good we even went back for a couple more (they were small, and $1.50 each):

Next stop was Lava Vine Winery.

This was by far the most fun and entertaining wine tasting ever. Seriously. The place is chill and laid back, the guys pouring (Pete and John, I think) were hilarious and wonderful. I'll just show you some photos. Here they are playing some Neil Young for us:

Here's Pete letting the couple who bought olive oil dip their bottles in wax so they could more safely take them on the plane with them back to Cleveland:

Here's Pete's dipped-in-wax guitar pick (that he plays with):

We tasted a chenin blanc, a viognier (bought one of those), a grenache, a petit syrah (bought that too), a port (bought one of those). All the wine we tasted was around the $28-$39 dollar range, with the exception of the port, which was a bit more. Someone asked if they did any cabernet and John thought for a couple of seconds and then went somewhere secret and got a bottle of their reserve cabernet (about a hundred bucks) and opened that so everyone could try it (maybe a dozen people in tasting room by then). It was fabulous (did not buy one of those). And then, more music:

It was a blast. We rode over to Twomey (at the recommendation of the bike shop when I called to tell him we bought some stuff at Lava Vine) just before they closed and tasted a bit more wine…really liked their 2003 Merlot (bought one of those). Then we biked back to the bike shop and picked up our wine (my Brooks basket really came in handy for this!) and rode back to camp. There are two other Airstreams here: a Bambi and a 345 motor home. Cool!

Here's a cute (but empty) "Free Veggies" bin along our route:

It was a great time and I'd highly recommend this tour! Tomorrow afternoon we have two other tastings scheduled, but I don't think they're quite as bikable (up on Diamond Mountain Road), so we'll bike over to Chateau Montelena in the morning sometime (of the 1976 Paris tasting fame). We're really enjoying Calistoga…it's much quieter than Napa, it's so bikable, and the scenery is lovely.

“America’s House of Sparkling Wine”

Laura Domela — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 00:46:38 +0000

Schramsberg Vineyards was founded in 1862 and they make sparkling wines in the traditional French method (méthode champenoise), where the wine undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle. (All champagne and most sparkling wine is made using this method — also referred to as méthode traditionnelle.)

Anyway, one of the tour/tastings we decided to do this time in Calistoga was the Schramsberg Cave Tour and Tasting. It's not cheap ($50), but enough people on Yelp said it was well worth it, so we decided it just might be. (Unlike, say…the geyser.)

The tour was informative and fun…about a dozen people at 12:30pm today. We learned a bit about the history of the place (which you can do here if you're into it) and then headed off into the caves. There are two miles of underground mountain caves. The first half mile was dug with pickaxes by the hands of about 100 hired workers over a period of 10 years in the late 1800s. The next mile and a half was done with augers in the 1980s and I'm guessing took far less time.

The cave walls are lined with bottle walls, sometimes more than 60 rows (of bottles) deep. Here's a rosé wall:

We learned a lot about how the fermentation works, and all about riddling. Riddling is the act of turning and shaking the bottle every two days and then dropping it back into the riddling rack, with the angle gradually increased. This is a riddling rack:

Schramsberg has a master riddler named Ramon Viera who can riddle a rack of 60 bottles in 6 seconds. He's now 73 and has been at Schramsberg since the 70s. There are YouTube videos of him in action if you want to see his deal.

After exploring the caves for a while and being mezmerized by the insane number of bottles in there (2.5 million or so!), we headed into a lovely tasting room to start our tasting.

The tasting was great! Very good sparkling wines and a bunch of great information. Today they added a food element to the tasting (I think for the first time…they're trying it out for two weeks, getting feedback from the tasters to see if it works and if we'd pay more for it as an option) and so we also had a couple types of salumi, cheese, and some nuts. It was great…tasting without food, tasting with food…lots of people asked questions and it was a fun time.

We had, in order (1) Blanc de Blanc (2) J. Schram (3) Blanc de Noirs (4) Reserve, and then (5) a J. Davies Cabernet at the end. The cab was great, and of the sparkling wines we both liked the J. Schram and the Reserve the best, which means we apparently like the older wines (these were in the caves for 6 and 7 years if I remember right). They're also the most expensive (of course) at $110 per bottle. Oh well, but good to know!

We returned to the Airstream and did a bunch more work and then at around 5pm took our bikes out and rode to dinner over at Sol Bar. Sol Bar has a Michelin star, and the food was creative and delicious. We had two starters and two main dishes, and once our server knew we liked the tasting menu style of things and that we were sharing, she recommended we do one course (split) at a time, first the two fish dishes: the tuna (barely grilled yellowfin tuna, scallion-ginger black rice, pickled garnet yams, shiitake vinaigrette, tempura tat soi) … and this may have been my favorite dish, but I have no photo for you. Waaah waaaah.

The next dish was the petrale sole (lemongrass-poached local petrale sole, jasmine rice, hearts of palm, coconut milk, charred green onions, pea shoots, lime) and it was light and Thai-ish and lovely. Here's a photo after I had a few bites:

Next came the richer dishes, First the gnocchi starter (yukon gold potato gnocchi, black truffle, house-cured bacon, sunchoke, parmigiano-reggiano):

…and then the duck breast entree (gently cooked liberty farms duck breast, calasparra rice croquettes, sunflower seeds, blue lake beans, pickled oranges, marjoram):

We rode our bikes all around town for 5 miles or so after dinner (probably not enough to burn off dinner, but that'll happen tomorrow), circling in on the campground just as it got dark. Our new Schmidt Edelux 2 lights are KILLER at night. Get a load of those taillights!!

Hope you all had a great day! Tomorrow we'll be doing a bike ride/wine tasting tour around Calistoga, organized by the Calistoga Bike Shop. It's unguided, $59 per person ($89 if you don't have your own bikes) and the price includes (1) your tasting fees (significant at mostly $20/pp average), (2) any roadside assistance you might need, (3) they'll bring your wine back to bike shop by the end of the day if you buy anything, and (4) they'll set up a route for you that meets your desires (between 8-18 miles, number of wineries, if you want to plan a lunch stop, etc.) Should be pretty fun…we'll let you know tomorrow!

Geysers, Goats, Wine, and Mud

Laura Domela — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 01:47:20 +0000

Today in Calistoga it rained most of the day, so we just hunkered down and worked. Late in the afternoon there appeared to be a break so we unfolded the bikes and took off for a little exploring.

First stop was Envy Wines.

Hey look! They have an Airstream too!

It was a great tasting. (Sauvignon Blanc, Rose, Cabernet, a really good blend, and a Petit Sirah). The tasting room was filled with visitors from Portland (us), Seattle, Spokane, and San Francisco. Fun! Great wines! We brought some back to the Airstream…on our bikes:

Next stop: Old Faithful Geyser of California.

This geyser erupts every 10 minutes, but sometimes every 6 minutes (so convenient!). It's…um…"AMAZING"?

But not really. I mean, it's okay, but it's $14/per person and it's certainly not Old Faithful in Yellowstone. But hey! There's a petting zoo, which is really just a bunch of goats running around. BUT, they have Tennessee Fainting Goats, and although we didn't get to see any fall over, they were pretty cute.

They've got some other stuff too (Jacob's Four-Horn Sheep, and I think some other kinds of goats), and a llama or two.

And that's it. But for us, it was TOTALLY worth 28 bucks because we got to make you guys this video that will give you the truly authentic feel of this tourist trap experience. Enjoy all the way to the end:

So there. We just saved you 14 bucks per person, right? (And how'd you like that fortuitous volunteer narrator??)

We rode back to camp, put our bikes away, and walked a couple blocks to our 6pm mud bath appointment at Golden Haven Hot Springs.

It's a litle hotel/resort with a mineral pool and stuff, but during the week at certain times they have a two-for-one special so a couple (or two naked friends, whatever) can go for $89 bucks total and get a mud bath (with mud facial and cold compress), then a jacuzzi mineral tub soak, then a blanket wrap. And if you want to go in their mineral water pool afterward, you're welcome to do that too. Here's a shot of the mud baths, but my lens was steaming up so it looks a little gauzy:

It was so cool though. You get in and have to kind of shimmy your way down into the mud (which is clay, peat and hot springs mineral water) until you're submerged, but you still are completely suspended in this earthy stuff. It's super trippy and we loved it.

We walked back just at sunset and snapped this shot outside the Airstream:

A great day in Calistoga!

Bodega to Calistoga (and the Farmlet!)

Laura Domela — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 03:13:03 +0000

This morning we got up, did some work, and then rode our bikes out to Bodega Head in the fog. This shot was from our campsite:

View of Porto Bodega Marina from across the back side of the bay. One of those dots is our Airstream:

We rode out to Bodega Head and then on the way back stopped (again!) at Sput Point Crab Company. We ordered a couple of crab sandwiches (for breakfast), and took home a whole crab and four cups of clam chowder (because OMG this clam chowder is amazing!) They are super serious (and right) about the clam chowder being addictive.

A bit more work back at camp, and then we headed inland. First stop: Dave and Ann's Farmlet in Petaluma. We traveled with Dave and Ann (and Wynne! she's 2 now!) during last year's Canadian Caravan and it was so nice to catch up with them! They've got a beautiful farm just outside of Petaluma, with sheep, chickens, a rooster (a rooster that Wynne named "Chicken" … how confusing is that?), and a sweet and friendly pig named Petunia.

That's the chicken called "Honey" there next to to one of the Suffolk sheep:

Petunia:

Here's where we had lunch. Oh, and lunch: brussels sprouts and kale salad (delicious), brie, crackers, strawberries, and some cured pork from one of Dave & Ann's farm pigs…the ones who don't have names.

And here's Wynne, totally pushing the boundaries of this rocking thingy, but then watching carefully that she didn't go off the back edge. She's adorable.

After we said goodbye to the Dave and Ann (and Leslie and Chris, who joined us at the Farmlet today, and who we also met up with in Bodega Bay at Gourmet au Bay a few days ago) we headed into Calistoga to our next location. This is such a beautiful area! We set up camp, did some more work, and then took a before-dark bike ride to explore a bit (another 7 miles).

We ended up grabbing dinner at Bosko's Italiana Trattoria in town and it was really good: spinach salad, chicken marsala, and a rigatoni dish with chicken breast, peas, prosciutto, and a cream sauce.

I've been working out a plan for the week…one that works with our work week to include bike rides and wineries. Also…this place!!

TENNESSEE FAINTING GOATS??? We are SO there.