Santa Cruz Mountains and Ridge Monte Bello Winery

Sunday, 17 April 2016 

Yet another stunning sunny spring day in California. We started our day with a quick stop to stroll along the beach in beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea. Because it was our last day it took us a while to get everything packed up and ready to go for the airport. We got to the beach at around 10:30am and already it seemed that most of the town had come to the beach for the day. Lots of people walking dogs, kids playing in the water, lots of surfers out getting waves. We took our shoes off and played in the sand for a while too. Coming from Australia we were interested to see what the water temperature was like, so we dipped our toes in, and oh my god was it freezing – there was no way we would even considered going in the water at that temperature – think Tasmania in winter and you get the idea, brrrr…. 

As it was our last day we had a packed itinerary – things we wanted to cross off before we left, so back in the car and on to our next stop. One of the things we wanted to do was to go to Santa Cruz and go on the boardwalk and have a ride on the famous old wooden roller coaster. For movie buffs, Santa Cruz was the local used to film ‘The Lost Boys’ – in the film the town was named Santa Clara and it was the ‘murder capital of the world’ – but that was fiction, fact was that because it was such a nice sunny day, it was the ‘gridlock capital of the world’. So many people headed to the beach that day that the road system was overwhelmed and so we got stuck in this almighty traffic jam – the closer to the boardwalk we got, the worse it was. Anyway it was moving so slowly we still got some pictures, but we had booked a 2pm wine tasting at another famous winery up in the Santa Cruz Mountains so we had to leave the beach behind and get the hell out of there. 

The winery Trevor booked us in for was the famous Ridge Monte Bello estate. Its fame derived from wine tasting event held in Paris in 1971 ‘the Paris Judgment’ where a number of Californian wineries (including Mayacamas and Ridge) wines went up against famous French wines in a blind tasting. Needless to say the Californian wines beat the French and the rest as they say is history. We had a semi private tasting (us and three other couples) where we got to try some fabulous wines, including the most famous wine of the lineup - the Ridge Monte Bello. The winery is way up in the hills overlooking Silicone Valley – the views from the winery are just stunning (the wines were pretty good too!). What a great way to spend the last day of our holiday. 

After Ridge, we tried to get to another winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Tomas Fogarty which is known for having great Pinot Noir. Although we got there before 5pm they had already put up the ‘tasting room closed’ sign which was really disappointing as the winery was in a spectacular location and we were really looking forward to checking out their Pinots (Trevor and Michelle have a sad face). 

This only left us with one thing remaining on our to do list – to go check out the Big Basin Redwood Forest. I know what you’re thinking – what more trees? – what’s wrong with these people? But until you’ve been to one of these giant forests that are thousands of years old you really can’t understand how special they are. On the drive in we entered areas of new growth forests i.e. places where the big old trees had been logged, and younger trees were now growing, but as we went deeper and deeper into the park, the trees got bigger and bigger. Finally we arrived, and the place was just magical. A very special way to end our trip. 

After a an hour or so of walking amongst these giant trees it was time to get going. We headed back up the hill towards one of the many scenic viewing spots in the Santa Cruz Mountains that overlook Silicone Valley for the sunset, the last one we would see before coming home.