For those of you who know us, you know how much we love visiting this area of California. Despite California’s reputation for high cost of living, horrendous traffic, earthquakes, wildfires and other natural disasters, who could not be enchanted by this area of the “Golden State”.
What fun we had here as were joined by Phee and Lyle Rosnick and later by family…Susie and Dean, Jack and Christina. We also met up for dinner a longtime friend of mine dating back to high school days, Linda Beno. All in all an action packed 2 weeks of wining, dining and sight-seeing! Anyone who would like our detailed notes (as you know, Bill takes this very seriously) on the wineries, the tasting experiences and the restaurants, please reference the wine section on the webpage for the extensive, informative, albeit subjective and opinionated spreadsheets.
We started the week with Phee and Lyle Rosnick, and enjoyed impeccable weather, touring an number of our favs as well as a number of new wineries. We lunched on great sandwiches from Ike’s and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery in-between tasting appointments. A poolside happy hour and truly scrumptious, outside patio dinner in Napa finished up a wonderful 2 days of wine tasting. A great time was had by all.
Susie and Dean joined us a couple of days later and we did some wine tasting with just the four of us as well as visiting Point Reyes State Park. We were so fortunate to have warm, sunny weather for our hikes to amazing, panoramic outlooks, walks on almost empty beaches. Lunch and bottle of wine overlooking the pacific ocean…how great is that ?
We were then joined by Christina and Jack and the more serious wine tasting began. We visited about 15 wineries in 3 days, most by appointment. We purchased a total of about a dozen cases of wine through our entire California wine tasting experiences. Lots of fun, great food for both lunches/dinner and fabulous company. Checked off Montelena from my bucket list. We will be reaping the benefits for years to come.
This was pretty much our last hurrah for the first year of our retirement adventure and what a fitting end to this particular episode (with a brief break from the cross country travel in Nashville). Looking forward to rejoining our children and grandchildren for family fun, holidays and the summer. Here we come 1000 Islands !
SEB
