On February 24, 2008 these wine lovers went on an interesting excursion out of San Francisco: an ecologically friendly bio-diesel powered van from Incredible Adventures whisked them off to the outlying areas north of San Francisco. After a first stop at Muir Woods to admire the giant redwoods they embarked on a tour to wine country. Through the rain they drove north into the Sonoma Valley, one of the two world-famous wine-making areas north of San Francisco. The other, even more famous wine-making area, is the adjacent Napa Valley.
The Sonoma Valley is actually the birthplace of the Californian wine industry and encompasses 13,000 acres of parkland. Before lunch they stopped at two wineries, Roche and Homewood Wineries, where they got to taste a whole variety of red and white wines and even some local olives and olive oils. For lunch they stopped off on the main square of Sonoma for a tasty lunch at the Basque Café.
After lunch the travelers headed into the Castle Winery just off Sonoma’s main square. The last stop on this excursion were the Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards which produce world-class award-winning sparkling wines as well as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The Ferrer family’s involvement with sparkling wine goes back several centuries in Catalonia, Spain, and their most famous product is Freixenet, a world famous sparkling wine made according to the méthode champenoise.
Properly educated about wine and definitely in a much lighter mood after all these tastings, the group started heading back to the city.
At the end of the excursion, the adventurers got conveniently dropped off on the doorsteps of their hotel, the Queen Anne, and after recovering for a bit, then took the 22 bus and went for a nice dinner to Tangerine SF, a beautiful restaurant that features Pan Asian cuisine, located in the SoMa district of San Francisco. After a great filling dinner and a long conversation with the owners Steve and Sean, they walked all the way back to their hotel on Fillmore Street, a pleasant 45 minute walk through beautiful Victorian neighborhoods.
