Our holiday begins in the Lower Haight, San Francisco

Monday, 4 April 2016 

Today was the first day of our Californian holiday.  We arrived without any incident. We stayed in our first ever Airbnb in the Lower Haight area of San Francisco. It was really lovely, stylish and full of art. After a quick refresh following the long flight from Australia, we got out and enjoyed the beautiful day.  Our apartment was walking distance from Haight Ashbury and the famous “painted ladies” houses.

We had lunch in the cafe across the road and then went for a walk down to Hayes Valley (a place that felt a bit like a mix of Melbourne's Brunswick Street and Chapel Street) and came across Smitten ice-cream which make it to order using liquid nitrogen, which had been specifically recommended to us as well worth checking out. The result was particular smooth and delicious.

Then shopping in San Francisco’s famous shopping district of Union Square. On our way there we went past all the grand old civic buildings and saw the ‘Monumental Rabbits’ which were 5 large inflatable rabbits temporarily installed on the nearby grounds which were created by an Australian artist, representing the damage the rabbits do to the Australian landscape.

Then we went out for dinner at a restaurant called Rich Table, which was also highly recommended. The food was excellent.

Wandering the Streets of San Francisco

Tuesday, 5 April 2016 

Trevor had arranged to get his Swiss passport reviewed (which was more convenient to do in SF than try to get to Sydney) so we had an appointment and that got us into town nice and early. Had a quick look at China Town and then onto the Coit Tower where we had a lovely view of the city and the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Around the base of the tower there are murals showing the life and industry of California.  The pictures in the background of the blog are from the murals in the tower.

Then we started walking down to the waterfront where we were heading to for lunch, however on the way there, there was a lovely building. As we went past it, it had writing about it, and it turned out to be Francis Ford Coppola’s bar. He has a winery too and it was all connected. Trevor suggested we go in for a drink. I said “what time is it?” and Trevor said, “it’s drinky time” – actually it was quarter to drinky time (ie 11:45am), but it was close enough. Inside there was all these photos of the Coppolas and other famous directors.  

We wondered about where on earth you could go where so many famous directors would be in one place having a drink. So much of our popular culture comes out of the USA, its quite unique really.

Then onto the waterfront to look around the Embarcardo, which is full of fancy food shops. We had lunch and then jumped on a tram (they’re all 50s looking trams, very cute) and went to Pier 39 to see the seals.

On the way to Haight Ashbury we went through Golden Gate Park and saw a car in a strange place – it wasn’t the “Streets of San Francisco”, but the “Steps of San Francisco”.

Before we left Melbourne we had bought tickets to a communal dinner at a place called Bar Agricole. It was celebrating one of its farmer-suppliers, Mariquita Farm. They had a lamb slow-cooked in a coal pit which was so tender and delicious and just falling off the bone.  This was on top of all the fabulous vegetables that were grown on the farm. We got a lot of good advice from local San Franciscians about what to do on our trip. The food and wine was excellent.

Hot Day in San Francisco

Wednesday, 6 April 2016 

It was freakishly hot in San Francisco for this time of year. 30 degrees celsius. We took advantage of the nice weather and went for a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Off to the flower conservatorium at the Golden Gate Park and the De Young Museum. At the museum they had an exhibition where florist created arrangements to match and enhance the artwork.

We tried to get to Baker’s beach to get some different pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, but because it was a hot day it looked like half of San Francisco had taken the afternoon off to go there. We decided we would go in the morning at sunrise to take our pictures.

Hitting the road to Sonoma's wine country

Thursday, 7 April 2016 

We hit the road to go to Sonoma wine district.  We drove up along the coast which was really beautiful, but the weather had turned a little cold.

We were driving along and saw our first road kill. “What is that?” we thought. A crow was trying to drag it off the road. Trevor says “it’s a skunk” and then he said “oh my god it !@#$@ stinks!” so we opened the windows to try and clear it, but it was rancid for at least 300 meters down the road. We talked to people who said when you actually get “skunked” i.e. sprayed directly, you can’t get the smell out for weeks. It smelled like burning tires mixed with some nasty, toxic chemical spill. You hear about skunks but you think they couldn’t possibly be as bad as all that – well, we can tell you, it is - and worse.

Then we went to a famous winery along Sonoma's Russian River Valley, Williams Selyem, which is quite exclusive and very hard to get access to. You can’t go unless you’re on their mailing list and have bought some wine. Well we ordered some wine, sight unseen from Australia, so we could go there. It was excellent. Picked up our wine and had a tasting. 

We saw the workers in the field.  All Mexicans – and they want to build a wall to keep these people out; who will pick the grapes?

Then onto another excellent winery, Littorai, which we had also booked for a tasting and tour of the vineyard. We have tried their wines in Australia and knew they were excellent (famous for their pinot noir and chardonnay). We had a 90 minute tour and tasting. The winery is completely biodynamic and so we were shown around all the special things they do to keep it that way so they don’t have to use any pesticides or commercial fertilisers and can be as fully self-sufficient as possible. They had big compost heaps and boxes for barn owls to deal with their gofer problem that dig holes through the ground and hurt the vine roots. They plant sunflowers next to the vines to give the birds something to eat so they don’t eat the fruit.  While we were there we saw them handpicking chamomile petals to make a ‘tea’ infusion for the ground which helps for a calming effect for the plants (who knew?)

For dinner we were hoping to get some of the famous Dungeness crabs which were just in season. We went to Bodega Bay where the fishing fleet comes in to try and get fresh crabs but there was nothing open – how disappointing. But it was a beautiful inlet.

We ended up going to an excellent restaurant called Peter Lowell’s in Sebastopol near where we were staying which was recommended to us by the lady that ran the Airbnb place we stayed at.  The suburban street the restaurant was on was full of great street art.  One of the residents on the street was a sculptor and he made a sculpture for the front yard of every house.  It was pretty cool – every sculpture represented the particular occupation or hobby of the owner of the house.

Mendocino's Giant Red Woods and Wines of the Anderson Valley

Friday, 8 April 2016 

Got up early to go to Montgomery Woods where a stand of huge, ancient redwoods had been preserved.  The road to the woods took us up through some windy mountain roads with the most beautiful scenery.  

At one point we stopped to take in the views, which were gorgeous. When we got out of the car the air was heavily perfumed from the flowering trees which dotted the countryside. 

A few kilometres down the road we entered the forest of the giant redwoods.  They were huge, but even when you’re there, you need to be next to them to get the sense of just how big they really are. 

Trevor took some video starting at the top of the tree down, down, down, down to little me at the bottom – very spectacular.  As the place was a bit off the beaten track we more or less had the place to ourselves – it was really special.

After the redwoods we headed down to the coast to the town of Mendocino, a quaint little village that looks a bit like New England. The coast was beautiful, especially with all the wild flowers. Had some lunch and then onto a Botanical gardens just north of Mendocino where there were a lot of rhododendrons out in flower. The gardens are ok, but we’re really quite spoilt having the botanic gardens in Melbourne, so these were a bit lacklustre compared to what we’re used to.

Our original plan was to travel down the coast from Mendocino to Jenner and then back up the Russian River valley to home.  But as usual, the wine was calling us!  Just down the coast from Mendocino the road to the Anderson Valley came up and Trevor said, I’d rather try and check out the wine from this region as its regarded as one of the best Pinot Noir regions in the whole of California.  It was getting late in the day and we thought we might have been too late by then but there were still some wineries open, so we went for a tasting and bought some lovely wine.

The other benefit of heading inland down from Mendocino was that the road along the Navarro river wound its way through an old redwood forest which was just stunning. After the redwoods the valley opened up and the place was full of vineyards.  We stopped at the Navarro winery and had a great tasting. We bought some wine for our wine consumption while we’re here (some beautiful Gewurztraminer and Pinot Noir).  We also bought some great sheep and goats cheese to snack on with our wine – it’s a hard life

Napa Valley Here We Come

Saturday, 9 April 2016 

Today we left the wine region of the Sonoma Valley and headed over to California’s most famous wine growing area – Napa Valley. Napa is famous for producing some of the world’s best Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux Blends (here in California they generally call all Bordeaux blends simply ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ even if its blended with Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc etc – which is pretty confusing!). 

With thousands of wineries in the Napa region it was really quite difficult to select just a couple to go to visit. Of course Trevor did his research and so we went to some of the finest vineyards in the valley. Our first winery, Mayacamas was in the Mount Veeder Appellation – one of the oldest wineries in the area. It even survived prohibition (how did they ever let that happen?) by producing "religious wine" for the Catholic church.  

To get there we travelled over the top of the mountain through some beautiful oak forests – as it was early Spring, everything here is so green and lush – very magical.

Mayacamas is one of those wineries that just exudes elegance and classic charm. We had organised a personal tasting and tour of the vineyards which was close to the summit of Mt Veeder and lies in the crater of an extinct volcano. It’s famous for its Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay – the wines didn’t disappoint! 

After Mayacamas we headed down to our next appointment, yet another very famous vineyard, Spring Mountain (in the Appellation of Spring Mountain). Spring Mountain was an awesome estate that was established in 1885. It had fabulous old buildings which also happens to be the location of the old TV soapie “Falcon Crest”.

It was very – grand! We had a tour of the property which had some of the most beautiful old world gardens around the estate and was set in the middle of very scenic rolling hills all covered in vines (of course!) 

Then we went to our next Airbnb accommodation, which was a lovely farmhouse in the middle of the vineyards just outside of the town of Napa. 

Before leaving Melbourne we had bought tickets to a special event at the Culinary Institute of America (Greystone) in a little town called St Helena. 

25 wineries from the St Helena appellation and associated restaurants put on a food and wine matching competition called BASH (Beautiful Appellation St Helena). Each stand had a small morsel to go with their wine, and as participants we got to judge on the best matches. The food was really excellent, with some of the best restaurants in the area participating, along with some beautiful Bordeaux blend (and some other) wines. It was really a great evening. Some of the food included: lamb tartine with foie gras mousse; and cocoa crusted venison loin to name just a few – a very pleasant evening was had by all.  We voted for two food and wine matches which ended up winning the competition (first and second place).