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A long week-end in San Francisco and the Wine CountryFascination with “the grape” draws visitors to Sonoma CountyBy Lucy KomisarNorthern California is one of those magical places that is a model for the sophisticated urban-plus-country living we’d all have if the world was organized by smart people. Spending a long weekend there in November makes one put it on the short list of where to live if you ever moved from where you are. We landed in San Francisco for a taste of classy city chic, then moved on to the wine country, passing through forest and beach on the way.
Then we checked out of the Omni and started out on a highlight of the trip, a visit to the Sonoma County wine country. Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, we stopped at the Muir Woods, a national park that protects and preserves and features the glorious Redwoods. Park rangers are posted at key places to give talks about botanical lore. From the forest, we headed to the Pacific Ocean and lunch at a fish shack at Stinson Beach and then walked on the sand to gaze at the Pacific. By the time we reached Santa Rosa, we were delighted that our destination, the FountainGrove Inn, was perfectly located just off Highway 101: no need to go searching. We were ready to sample the first taste of local wines at the hotel wine bar and were delighted to discover that it was also a piano bar, presided over by Ron Cameron, an old time movie actor, now 80. “What roles did you do?” we asked. “I played in movies for Columbia… good guys, bad guys!” he replied with a twinkle. But now he plays standards such as “I’ll be seeing you” and "The nearness of you." Requests for those songs yielded an artful, jazzy medley.
In the morning, we barely had to fall out of bed to arrive at the Paradise Ridge winery a five-minute drive away. This is a boutique winery owned and run by the Byck family with a total production of only 5,000 cases. Paradise Ridge wines are made from small lots of Sonoma County grapes. It’s on a gorgeous site, high on a ridge overlooking the Russian River Valley. From the inside tasting room or on the deck, there’s a view of the hills. And group tastings of one or two whites and two to three reds are free. You can bring a snack and sit on the deck or in the champagne cellar. On summer Wednesdays, people bring picnics, buy wine and watch the sun set over the coastal hills.
The Paradise Ridge champagne cellar features an exhibit about Kanaye Nagasawa, the first Japanese wine maker in the US whose vineyard can be viewed from the balcony. He had been a samurai, left Japan to study the western economy, and became an important Sonoma County viticulturist and enologist, founding the Fountaingrove Round Barn and winery in Santa Rosa in 1875. It won international acclaim. Nagasawa died in 1934. The FountainGrove Inn has bought and is restoring the dilapidated Round Barn which he built in 1899 and is adjacent to the hotel.
We drove east to our next stop, Arrowood, another family winery, started in 1986 by Richard and Alis Demers Arrowood. Winemaker Richard practices organic farming, using stems, skin and seeds to return nutrients to the soil. The winery’s own soil is volcanic, which provides a higher class of fruit. The grapes that make his wine are all from Sonoma County. Arrowood produces 25,000 cases a year, mostly chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon. Roseanne DeBenneditti gave us a tour through the vineyard, the cellars and the production facilities where she talked about the wine-making process. She explained that Arrowood uses natural instead of commercial methods. For example, it lets sediment settle naturally, which takes longer, rather than using filtration pads or egg whites to sop up the sediment, which harms the character. Look for “unfiltered” on the label. Arrowood uses real oak barrels, while some wineries use oak chips. And it practices organic farming, planting cover crops to give nutrients back to the soil.
Roseanne told us that there is now a move in Sonoma County toward biodynamic farming in which planting is done according to the cycles of the moon. Organic-biodynamic farming has been adopted by Joe Benziger of the wine-growing Benziger family, and so we next proceeded to his vineyard, just down the road from Arrowood, where we could find out about that. Rod, who was pouring for our tasting at this next winery, explained that Mike Benziger came to California from White Plains, NY, in the 1980s. Sonoma Mountain was sacred to Indians, and Benziger wanted to respect the land. Rod said that Joe Benziger discovered biodynamic farming and moved to it in 1993. Now his wines are made from grapes grown in biodynamic vineyards. So just what is biodynamic farming? Rod explained that it involves establishing natural elements for a sustainable economic system. The Benziger grape farmers put bat houses and insectories in the vineyards, not pesticides. Instead of filtering, they depended on the tidal pull of the moon. “What!” I declared in disbelief. He explained, “There is high pressure at the full moon. The wine rises with the tidal pull, and the sediment compresses.” That’s when they turn the barrel. Then he said, “On the equinox, we have to bury bullhorns filled with asylica crystals from a volcano in Arkansas.” Well, that seemed pretty fishy to me, but who knows! Benziger’s vineyard was certified for organic farming in 2000 by Demeter in Germany. Certification can take three years; it’s harder than being certified by the FDA. Now, Rod said, Benziger is moving to an all-organic process and getting FDA-certified as organic.
That evening, we relaxed at dinner at the Wolf House Restaurant, on the banks of Sonoma Creek and part of the historic Jack London Saloon and Lodge. London lived on a ranch in the area from 1905 until his death in 1916. I could see the creek from our table in the charming country purple and beige dining room that recaptures the feeling of London’s early 20th-century years. The music was jazzy Satchmo and Billy Holliday.
The Imagery wine got us into a discussion with owner Elaine Neally about biodynamics. She was very much in favor. She explained, “It means you make better use of the environment. It means you generate more of own things -- power through solar, your own compost. It means no sod runoff into drainage. You take better care of land and the community as a whole.”
If you go
Muir Woods National Monument
Equus Restaurant: Starters focus on seafood, $8 to $12; main courses of fish, duck, pork steak and lamb, $17 to $28. Bring your own wine for $15 corkage.
Weddings, receptions, and events for groups of ten or more. The Paradise Found Wine Club provides two bottles of pre-selected wines at a 25% discount three times a year. (Cost $33 to $41 plus tax and shipping.) No membership fee. (707) 528-9463 or sonia@prwinery.com.
Tastings 10 to 4:30 daily, except major holidays. Reservations required for private tour and tasting, but not for tasting at the bar. $20 for guided tasting at bar and walk around property to see crush pad and outside facilities. $30 for private guided sit-down tasting at 10:30 and 2:30, which lasts from 1 to 1 ½ hrs. Reservations 3 weeks in advance for week-ends; 1 to 2 weeks in advance for midweek.
Sonoma State Historic Park Sonoma County Tourism Bureau Hotels in the town of Sonoma Café Citti, 9049 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood, (707) 833-2690. A good casual, inexpensive place for lunch where patrons order pastas, salads and other dishes at the counter and have food served at small tables with a view of the hills. Maps and guides from Insight, http://www.insightguides.com/. California Wine Country fleximap, $7.95. This was invaluable as we drove through the wine country. San Francisco fleximap, $7.95. Northern California Insight Pocket Guide, with a pullout map, $13.95. The pocket guides help one navigate to the key sites to see in each area. San Francisco Insight Pocket Guide, with a pullout map, $13.95. San Francisco Insight Pocket Map, $6.95. A handy pop-up map that fits into the smallest purse or pocket. by Lucy Komisar. |
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When you fly in to San Francisco, an excellent place to
stay is the Omni Hotel on California Street at the base of Nob Hill in the
financial district, steps from Chinatown and Union Square. The 17-story building
was the first skyscraper in the city, constructed in 1926 with a bank on the
ground floor. It was damaged in 1989 by the Loma Pietra earthquake and boarded
up for ten years. Omni Hotels bought and reopened it in 2002. The design copies
the original décor in a rich Florentine Renaissance look with marble
chandeliers, thick carpets and tapestries, and high ceilings. The dining room is
of traditional dark mahogany, the walls hung with vintage black and white
photographs of the city in the 1920s. The Omni serves luxuriant breakfasts in
the morning and later metamorphoses into Bob's Steak & Chop House. The financial
district set visits the bar in the evening.
On Saturday morning, we and five other visitors gathered at
the bar to meet a guide from the free San Francisco City Guides walking tour. It
departs from the hotel every Saturday at 10 am. Our week’s tour was of
Chinatown, and, not surprising for San Francisco, the guide’s repartee was
“progressive,” with some fascinating history about the discrimination suffered
by the 19th-century Chinese immigrants to California. She showed us the house in
an alleyway where Chinese nationalist leader Sun Yat Sen had lived in exile. She
pointed out a statue of Robert Louis Stevenson, who fell in love with a San
Franciscan and moved to the city. We stopped for samples at a fortune cookie
factory. She stopped at the building where the Chinese immigrants’ children
–deprived of education – had finally been able to go to school. This wasn’t just
a tour of buildings, but a glimpse into history.
The theme of the FountainGrove, a low, spread-out hotel
with a lot of dark wood and a hint of the Japanese influence that infuses
California, is horses. There’s a bronze horse head in the sky-lighted,
rock-walled lobby, and the gourmet restaurant is called “Equus.” We had dinner
there in a comfortable room with low lights, modern art, and huge vases with
gorgeous blooms. From the California menu by Jeff Reilly, I chose a seafood
sampler of Dungeness crab cake with tomato ginger relish, seared dayboat scallop
with curry coconut sauce, oyster on half shell with Mignoette sauce, and Ahi
poke with Tobiko caviar. A wonderful palette of flavors. Then the main course of
delectable sea bass with watercress, leek and white wine cream sauce. And, of
course, Sonoma wine. Jeff Reilly, in charge of the kitchen, is a Five Star
Diamond-rated chef, a high national honor in the trade.
The wine is good! Mishka Lord, who organized a tasting for
us, explained proudly that the 2002 Rockpile Cabernet Sauvignon at $35 won a
best of class gold from Harvest Fair of Sonoma County against $60 cabs and
others. “Cabs” are what the trade calls cabernet sauvignons. And this winery is
only 13 years old! Rockpile, Mishka said, is a new cult appellation.
When it’s time for a walk, it’s nice to amble through the
Paradise Ridge Wood Sculpture grove, featuring a huge Japanese gate as well as
quirky modern art. Owner Walter Byck, a retired radiologist who married into a
wine-making family, is proud of his outdoor art gallery.
Visitors can take those tours, along with sit-down
tastings, if they reserve in advance. On a nice day, people can sit on the
veranda overlooking the vineyard and hills. At our tasting, an unusual treat was
an Auslese white Riesling, a sweet wine perfect with fruit-based deserts and
salty cheeses. Auslese refers to wine made from grapes that are allowed to stay
on the vines until the frost. Offering a hint of his own preferences, Richard’s
license plate says “Auslese”!
We learned that this unusual vineyard has another special
feature. In the 1980s, the Benzigers’ Glen Ellen winery produced 4 million cases
a year. In 1984 year it got some special grapes. Joe Benziger's friend Bob
Nugent created the Glen Ellen “Imagery” series, commissioning painters to design
creative labels. Rod said, “Now there are 8000 cases a year of the oddball
thing!” And the labels – all paintings which, in one way or another, show the
Parthenon – are on the walls of the large tasting area where people can arrive
without reservations. There is no formal tour.
All the food at the Wolf House is seasonal. To start, we
ordered forest mushrooms with Parmesan Tuile, micro salad and truffle essence
along with a salad of Fuyu persimmon and goat cheese Napoleon with lollo rosso
greens and endive. Then basil crusted lamb rack and cider brined pork chop with
roasted apples. They were sensuously flavorful. We were delighted that the wine
list featured Imagery burgundy! The kitchen is presided over by executive chef
Chris Kennedy Aken.
The center of the “community,” if there is one, might be
the town of Sonoma. (Santa Rosa is bigger, but Sonoma is more charming.) It is
worth a visit. The 1835 town square is surrounded by old adobe buildings. The
San Francisco Solano de Sonoma Mission, built in 1823, changed its function when
Mexico secularized all missions into parish churches in 1834. Now it is run by
the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Visitors can see exhibits in
five original rooms, including the bell room, dining room, chapel and courtyard.
In 1832, some 900 American Indians worked the 10,000 acres of land; a plaque now
recognizes and honors “those Native Americans who died during this Mission’s
11-year existence.”
Omni San Francisco Hotel
FountainGrove Inn
Paradise Ridge Vineyards & Winery
Arrowood Vineyards and Winery
Imagery Estate Winery
Wolf House Restaurant
