Day 7 Sonoma Wine Tours

  Sonoma, California, United States
Thursday, May 22, 2008

El Pueblo breakfast room

Last night, just after we had gone to bed, our door opened and another couple with a suitcase went to come in. We politely told them "wrong room" and away they went. So we thought putting the chain on the door might be a good idea! 

In the morning we found neither of our keycards would unlock the door, so we went down to reception. Apparently what had happened was that for some reason the booking system had said we were in a different room and our room was free. So another couple had been allocated for there which cancelled our cards. They were very apologetic and said it had all been corrected. To compensate they said we would not be charged for our first nights stay which was very good of them.

Breakfast is complimentary and is served in the room beside Reception. It is a help yourself with coffee, fruit, pastries, toast, bagels, jams, cereals etc. Smaller than the San Francisco breakfasts we had been having but still adequate to start the day.  

We had a bag of laundry to do by this stage in our holiday so we went across the road from the El Pueblo to Off Broadway Cleaners. Unfortunately they only did dry cleaning so we dropped off trousers and shirts and will get the rest done later in a coin op laundry.

Barrells at Loxton

10am we were picked up by Burdick Vineyard Tours which we had pre-booked at a cost of $75 each. They had problems processing two different credit cards that we offered and ended up having to pay in cash. We were picked up on time from the hotel by our driver, Debbie. Their tours normally have up to 6 people, but today there were only the two of us. Private tours cost 3 times what we paid so as a positive we were getting a private tour as a cut down price - but on a negative we were doing it on our own and I had rather looked forward to doing it with a small group as we do like to meet other people while we are on holiday. 

Nevertheless off we went. Debbie asked us if there were any particular wineries we wanted to visit but we said no, just what she thought. She said she likes to take people to some of the more non-commercial wineries as it's always good to give the wee guy a fighting chance :) 

We first stopped off at Loxton which is a very small winery owned by an Australian. It produces and sells its wine only locally. They were getting ready to start bottling their wines the following day. All the barrels were stacked up in the shed; we did our first wine tasting and sampled 6 different wines. We were told about the different grapes, the
process of making them and the distinctive flavours. It was also interesting to hear about how they use the barrels (each cost about $1000 each) made from oak to mature or flavour the wine. Some places use new barrels, as the barrel is used, each year less and less oaky flavour goes into the wine which is one way different years can have different flavours.

We really liked the final dessert Red we tried (Loxton Late Harvest) and so bought a bottle of that, $24. As we bought a bottle there was no wine tasting fee.
 

Vines at Kunde

The next visit was the Kunde Estate. The Kunde is a slightly larger business who does ship nationally and some also does go international. We got a tour of the caves beneath the hill where they store their wine in barrels at a higher humidity to reduce wine loss due to evaporation and a lower constant temperature. They had demonstration vines
growing where they explained how the different grapes grow and how the different shaped trestles are installed depending on the type of grape being grown.

Wine making seems an awful lot more complicated that getting some grapes, crushing them and leaving them in a barrel for a while! Here we purchased a 2006 Viognier ($24). Again, no tasting fees as we purchased. It was getting on for midday so time for a break in boozing, Debbie suggested stopping at a small Italian family restaurant called Café Citti. I had the recommended garlic caeser salad with smoked chicken and Catriona had Linguini Puttanesca. We also had olives, bread and a couple of Lattes. $38 inc. tip. It was very fresh, tasty and most definitely garlicy! A great little find that we would probably have driven past if we had not been told. There were a fair number of locals (and ones that had driven from Santa Rosa) eating in there which is always a good sign.

Next door were the VJB Tasting Room where we tried another sample of wines. At the end we bought a sparkling
Italian wine called Prosecco as it was $20 for the bottle and if we had bought nothing the tasting would have cost us $10 anyway! So a bottle of light sparkling to drink in the evening for $10 :) 

We asked Debbie if we could go to a winery that did sparkling wines and she took us to Gloria Ferrer. We were
in-between times for tours of the facility which is a shame as I would have been really interested in seeing how the process of making sparkling wine is done. Instead, we purchased a bottle of Blanc De Noir, $20, (Bright strawberry and black cherry aromas with subtle vanilla highlights. Creamy cherry, lemon and cola flavors combine with a lush palate, small, lively bubbles and a persistent finish don't you know) and sat out on the terrace and drank it in the sunshine, blue skies and odour of cows in the distance - just like being at home. Well, apart from the sunshine and blue skies!

Drink up!

The final stop of the day was The Olive Press; olives are also grown here in Sonoma. We tried out a few sample olive oils. They all seemed a lot milder than the oils we are used to, they were much lighter. 

Finally we arrived back at the Inn 5.5 hours after starting. It was a great day out and we can recommend the services of Debbie and  Burdick Vineyard Tours.

Catriona went off with a bag of washing to Launderland just along the street and I went down by the pool to type up our notes for today. Note the WiFi does not extend as far as the pool area. 

Dinner this evening was at The Girl & The Fig. No. 3 on Tripadvisor, at the moment we feel it should be No.1, it
was superb. We had the house-cured salmon gravlax.  ($13), english cucumber, red onion, pea shoot salad, citrus vinaigrette followed by Fulton Valley chicken ($20) seared breast & braised leg, green garlic, pea tendrils, white wine sauce and chickpea panisse cake ($17) bloomsdale spinach, caramelized onions, feta, toasted almonds, smoked pepper puree. Drinks were a mojito with rosewater and lavender (tasted better than it sounds!) and a Pimms cup. We also had a glass of Graff viognier each with our meal.

Gloria Ferrer sparkling range

Cheese!

Finished off with a plate of cheeses with fig cake and apricot & apple chutney and a glass of Port. $160 with tip, all together a superb setting, meal and service. Not at all stuffy, casual dress and we highly recommend it to anyone. Go there! 

We walked round the square while hearing Kool and the Gang playing at a local concert for the festival which is on this weekend. We called into Café La Haye to see of we could get a booking for Saturday night - no luck. We then went across the road to Della Santina's (no. 2 on Tripadvisor) and managed to book for Saturday. So we will have eaten at no. 1,2,3 on Tripadvisor! We're having better luck than we did in San Francisco.

Walking up the road, we called into Safeways to look at all the strange groceries you can buy over here compared to what we get. Got a few supplies for tomorrow. 

Back at El Pueblo, we double locked the door (lest the booking system attempt to send us some more visitors tonight) and drank the bottle of Prosecco sparkling wine we bought today along with some Reese's :)