Sonoma Country Life

World's Most Followed Travel Blogger Takes a Vineyard Tour in the Petaluma Gap

Ever had the urge to sell up shop and take to the open road? Indefinitely. Wheresoever and for just how long the road might take you? Fantasy or fiction? For one man it remains a mind-boggling, free-wheeling reality.

Today's most -tracked travel-blogger, one extraordinary Gary Arndt of Everything-Everywhere.com did the unfathomable by putting his home on the market, selling his biz  - yes, packing his kit, lock, stock and barrel and making a clean sweep of the front doorstep on his way out to discover the big, wide world.

Since 2007, Gary has enjoyed the rarefied, remarkable experiences of globe-trotting at his own pace, taking in unlimited and for most of us, undreamed of sights, sounds and cultural experiences of intrepid, unrestricted transcontinental travel.

So what was Gary doing in my backyard this sunny, early October afternoon? Tea time in the British/American vineyard easily extends to an impromptu, private homestead vino-tasting event when Petaluma's unofficial ambassador of travel and tourism, Anastasia Schuster stops by. This time with fellow Twitterer, Gary on a whistle-stop tour of Petaluma Gap cool climate vineyards, large and small.

Gary's travels are followed by close to 100,000 on-line fans - many of whom are most likely about to read about Petaluma for the very first time! 

Inviting him up into the hillside vines for a taste of a classic, sun-ripened cool climate syrah grape, I was wondering just how many backyard vineyards Gary has come across on his travels. "The first," he confessed as we peeked into the world's smallest un-bonded winery (shed) at barrels and bottles and the garagiste's collection of tubes and pumps and testing paraphernalia! 

Toasted Gary's travels with a bottle of 2007 Que Syra and sent him onwards on the road to everywhere with a bottle of Petaluma's best home vintage as a memento of his visit to these parts.

Keep an eye out for Gary around town tomorrow (Tuesday).

Cross County Foray to the Castle of Love

 

 

 

 

 

Though supremely loyal to Sonoma Country living and subsequent quaffing of vino strictly deriving from this particular valley of the lauded Northern California wine country, there are occasions in life when a girl's gotta do what a girls gotta do to sneak over the border and sample the living conditions of our landed gentry neighbors in Napa County.

And what better reason for treachery toward one's home terroir than an invitation from royalty to feast at the castle? I mean, come on, wouldn't you? Drop everything to undertake an arduous journey via twisty, deer-dotted mountain trails across the great divide of Sonoma Mountain and into the lush expanses of vine-studded Anderson Valley for an evening of merriment within the castle walls. 

I'd heard of the infamous Castello Di Amorosa of course, though never dreamed I'd be dining in a private feast in the great hall by the light of a late summer's moon.

Walking across the draw-bridge, I did wonder if I'd unwittingly, somehow, in my haste to accept a mid-week romp of such extraordinary flamboyancy, signed myself up for a prototype of a new tv reality show, you know, one of those where we'd all get to decide who in the party of 18 gets to spend the night in the dungeon, which of us would be subjected to the torture chamber (yes, there really is a torture chamber, though it thankfully looked like it hadn't seen a lot of action of late) and who would wind up wearing the crown and get to be in charge of ALL of the many hundreds of barrels that would need to be rolled out of the labyrinth of underground tunnels at some stage of an imminent wine country harvest.

Not sure I would have gone for gold, being quite content to wander the castle tour in a somewhat gob-smacked state, in part due to the encyclopedic, fountain of wine-world knowledge of our larger-than-life tour guide, Joshua.

Having taken 13 years to complete, the Castle of Love is a trip and a half, painstakingly constructed with millions of authentic, old Umbrian stone, shipped from Italy over the near decade and a half. An early evening arrival was optimally timed for catching the sweet, peach-colored Alexander Valley slowly setting sun soak itself into the exterior stone work as we wondered how on earth the one man behind this phenomenal show of 'building your dream' could possibly have pulled it off so incredibly well?

Reason for the foray and feast was the double big digit birthday celebrations of both Michael and Teela Ridgeway (Amazing Grace did not dare to make an appearance for once, due to the presence of bubbling couldrons and large, sharp objects in abundance in the castle-kitchen). Our friends and neighbors and fellow Petaluma Gap grape growers, the Ridgeways are a romantic pair to say the very least. Michael had bid on the private tour and feast at a Sonoma County Farm Bureau (crab feed and auction was held in February) raising money for agricultural education in the county. Somehow the idea of toasting he and his lovely wife's half centuries within the castle walls was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not to be missed.

No one was tossed over the ramparts, we were a reasonably well-behaved bunch of courtiers, though the temptation to race around the underground tunnels sampling open-stacks of dusty vintages might have been all the more harder to resist had it been a weekend night!

Teela's tiarra made it around the table as we dined on roasted legs of lamb, apple hens stuffed with apples, rosemary red potatoes and baby veg, with cherry peach cobbler served in tea cups on saucers on the terrace. Sampled the winery's splendid Italian style Rosato di Sangiovese, a brilliant, straw colored Chardonnay as well as the Castle's intense Cabernet Sauvignon with its rich aromas of black plum, cassis and green olive with a spicey bouquet of cigar box, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Made it back across the grade before the car turned into a pumpkin, dreaming of dashing knights, roaring fires, great feasts and an entire underground world of endless wine!

Back to Reality!

Suitcases are strewn across the floor in the family room, laundry all over the place, snorkels, socks, sandals, all sorts of post-travel detritus spilling out after a stuffing into any spare luggage space for the big return home.

You know how it is. Jet lag on top. Emails, phone messages, snail-mail, super affectionate domestic animals vying for long-overdue attention. Boys bouncing around at 4am (knew I should have propped their eyelids open a little bit later last night)!

Opened my email from sister Lindsey's online photo share site to retrieve some fab photos from the magnificently laid-back Mallorcan finale of family visit. Thought you'd enjoy this shot of yours truly, Scribbles Daily enjoying a spot of the Balearic island's beer.

Note the carefully framed bikini shot! Though I have to say that it was rather encouraging to see so many fellow ample female figures (look closely in background) confident in enjoying the sun, sea and sand in their bikinis, without a care in the world for the overt body-image concerns of their California counterparts. It struck me as such a shame that so many of my fellow Americans are so hung up on not having the quintessential beach-babe body and take this to such an extreme as to barely being seen in a swimsuit in public at all. Get over it, girls. Life's too short to sweat it out fully clothed!

The white sand beach at Port de Pollenca in the north was ideal for my little niece, Phoebe, just 18 months and a merry little maniac in the water, racing in and out of the sea to the delight of her teenage cousins, dive bombing the salty ripples without the slightest fear! A five minute walk away from our Spanish-style, fourth floor rented holiday apartment, it was all about the beach for a dew days of r&r following three weeks of traversing England to visit the family and friends.

Took a short ferry twice to the stunning beach at Cap de Formentor, aptly named the 'jewel of the north' for its remote location along the rugged, northernmost Mallorcan coastline.

Attempted a drive back to Formentor along a sole, steep mountain pass one evening, only to pull over at a passing point with my stomach seemingly on the pedals of the tiny little stick shift fiesta. "Go on, Mom, you can do it," cheered the boys, thrilled at the breathtaking views and oblivious to the inpatient BMW almost touching our tail. Fearing a cliff-top panic attack or at the very least, stalling the vehicle half way up, I did manage a spectacular up-hill reverse with handbreak in an maneuver reminiscent of my 1983 UK driving test on a much lesser hill in Stamford, Lincolnshire!

As I steadied my nerves, the boys climbed the mountainous rocks for a bird's eye view of the ocean and bay and the old town of Pollenca, six km inland, built in the 13th century as a safeguard against sudden invasions from Moorish and Turkish pirates.

Thanks to Lindsey (pictured below with the Yorkshire Husband,Tim) for selecting this family-friendly, affordable holiday spot, for we'd never have pulled off such a terrific week if we'd attempted to book from the states. That's the beauty of European travel, if you spend enough time on the logistics, there are all sorts of price levels for pulling off a foreign adventure (though the lines for our cheap and cheerful Easy Jet outbound flight did prove the fact that not too many credit-crunched Brits were plunking for the staycation this summer).

It really was a planes, trains and automobiles trip, with the younger boys all for handling their own overground and underground tickets and taking responsibility for lugging suitcases up and down those notorious rail stairways en-route to and from Gatwick Airport to Lindsey's home in Twickenham.

Fiesta time in Mallorca with bustling market squares, white bunting overhead, live, traditional music and dance, tapas and paella.

Shopped in the neighborhood supermarket and local bakery for delicious Mallorcan prunes and apricots, almonds and olives, cheeses, meats and freshly baked breads. Traditional Ensaimada's (light, round pastry sprinkled with icing sugar) made more marvelous breakfast expeditions before the younger members of the family awoke, along with croissants by the brown bag full and fresh bread for the daily beach picnic.

A bi-lingual island, Mallorca uses both national Castillian Spanish as well as Mallorcan, which is a dialect of the Catalan language spoken in Barcelona, known as Catalunya. Most restaurant staff and shop workers speak at least a little English and with such a large influx of British tourists in the area it's tempting not to try any Spanish at all. Though unlike several other European cultures, the Mallorcans don't make much of an issue over bungled attempts to communicate with them in their own language, and apart from a bullish old broad in a shoe shop, I found shop keepers and restaurant staff to be a very friendly lot.

Not many Americans in Pollenca, I guess the traveling hoards are mostly attracted to Italy and France at this time of the year. If you fancy a Mediterranean sojourn quite a little way off the beaten path, inland Mallorca with forays to the coast would provide you with vast tracts of countryside, spotted with olive and almond groves, vineyards, fruit orchards, gorgeous, stone villas, windmills and wonderful, wonderful peace and quiet. Unless you happened to come across me, driving like a wild woman in a little, red, stick shift fiesta, with a gaggle of teenagers white knuckling the door handles and wondering how long it takes for their mother to become fully proficient with a manual motor!

 

The Mallorcan Leg

Final leg of the Europe ´09 adventure with all three boys along for a week in Mallorca, incredibly beautiful little island here in the Med. Arrived on Saturday as dusk was falling over the rocky hills and suddenrealization that I´d have to get to know the nuancies of driving a stick shift for the first time in about 17 years.

Scared the living daylights out of the lads as they attempted to map-read from a water park map grabbed in haste at the exit of the airport. ¨None of the roads are named,¨noted oldest son, in passenger seat. If he´d had any experience other than five mins in his friends´old, stick shift porche back in Petaluma, he´d no doubt have taken the wheel at that point.

¨There can´t be too many roads on this island,¨said I, heading North in the optismists approach to getting there in the end.

Blimey, it is hot, and I have burned my back with hours of ocean swimming, my favorite thing in the world.

Apologies for lack of on-trip photos, still haven´t figured out what´s wrong with my trusty camera. Next trip I´m bringing along a mini laptop, I hear that Google is coming out with something snazzy.

Loads to write about when I get back next week. Lots of work to catch up on, too. It´s been a month of mad travel to spend quality time with so many of my not-often so nearest and dearest, will be hard to say goodbye at the weekend.

Famous Five Go to Calgary - Petaluma Rivercats U11 Take on Indoor Elite!

Five fearless young Petaluma Rivercats U11 Lacrosse players have made the grade for the first Northern California BOX lacrosse travel team set to compete on an International level in Calgary, Canada, this summer. 

Petaluma's 10 & 11-year olds, Tommy Buickerood, Max Bechtel, Matt Salazar, Spencer Almy and Kyle Gomez-Fowers have been bitten by the lacrosse bug, big-time. Not only are they storming the fields of the Bay Area and beyond in one of the top regional U11A field lacrosse teams, these intrepid Petaluma Rivercat players have been carpooling (thanks to their dedicated parents, I must add) down to San Jose for regular indoor lacrosse training with the sports top pros.

Indoor Lacrosse is known simply as "Box" in Canada, where it originated and remains the most popular form of the sport, largely, I would imagine, due to climate.

Box Lacrosse is traditionally played on an indoor ice hockey rink once the ice has been removed or covered after the winter season. Two teams of six players each make this an altogether faster, rougher, compact version of the outdoor sport, more along the lines of hockey contact.

Pro lacrosse player with the San Jose Stealth, Shaydon Santos is the man behind the movement here in the South Bay, after bringing real Box lacrosse (Canadian Rules) to California. Shayden grew up in Canada and has a passion to share his favorite game with Bay Area youth.

California's 10 & 11-year-old  players are required to raise the money to support their trip - jerseys, additional equipment, facility time for practice, tournament fees and travel to Calgary. 

The boys will "billet" with host families during the June tournament.  Paired with a host from the Calgary Axemen team, the lads will stay 4 nights, eat their meals and hang with their Canadian pals when not at the tournament facility. 

Some of the kids will stay with a fellow Cali*Lax team mate at their host family's home and other boys may have to brave it alone. A huge part of the experience for our young 1998-born Petaluma boys, some of whom are now in line at the post office for their very first passports.

Cool, lacrosse fundraising merchandise is available on-line. There's no denying that lacrosse is something of an 'accessory' sport, with sticks and heads and gloves a near fanatical phenom with passionate players. All good negotiating tools - a new set of strings for several additional chore responsibilities. Works wonders. Go Cats, go!

An Island of One's Own

Teenagers the world over are renowned for their skills in escaping family gatherings. Finding a place of their own to hang out and chill and chat about the sorts of things we adults don't necessary find as fascinating or amusing.

An island of one's own is a fantasy for any teen entrenched in a group outing with the annoying oldies who'd rather sit in the shade on the beach with a gripping novel than dive for rocks and adolescent prowess!

So Sean's amazing inflatable party island was just the ticket for our day at Sand Harbor Beach, moored a mile out into the lake and leaving just enough space between base camp to keep an eye on the troops on shore.

Parents were permitted visiting rights, though it took a good ten minutes to swim out to party island. And it proved a popular stopping off point for passing kayaks and long-distance lake swimmers.

Another afternoon of inflatable fun was had along the Truckee River, the bunny-slope of white water rafting here in Northern California, where you can actually make it all the way down from Tahoe City, alongside scenic River Road in an inner tube, if you are particularly lucky not to find yourself stranded on a rock in the rapids.

With three boats between us we were well set for a do-it-yourself afternoon of river rowing and flowing and gentle navigation in the cool, clear, mountain run-off waters. The rapids at the end offer just enough excitement and sufficient moments of sticky situations wedged between huge river rocks to pump up the heartbeat for a healthy workout in the water.

Added entertainment bonus came in the form of a tree-felling helicopter as it dived and swooped and airlifted unstable fir trees from the dense forest hillside along River Road.

Two of the more senior members of our rafting party thoroughly embarrassed the younger generation of rowers with their jocular insistence in singing for beers from passing boats. Some people you can't take anywhere!

At 84 degrees in the evening, our impromptu lake-side picnic dinner back at King's Beach was back-lit by a classic full moon. In the glittery darkness weekend revelers rolled down to the water for an astonishing display of brisk, night swimming....

Pedal Power

Perusing this Monday morning's headlines over my cup of PG Tips I was not surprised to see that oil prices have surpassed $143 a barrel for the first time in U.S. history. Oil is officially double the price that it was at this time last year with the price of gas at the pumps also hitting an all-time high.

The ouch factor is effecting pocket books big time, and in an unprecedented effort to economize (and reduce the carbon footprint) increasing numbers of committed Californians are hitting the kick stand and cruising around town to work and play by good, old-fashioned pedal power.

Taking the bull by the horns, I've been brandishing backpacks and water bottles and the sensible shoes and boycotting the monster car whenever possible this summer. It's all the rage in rivertown too, as the boys and I discovered in full force on this morning's meander downtown to the post office and pit-stop at a local fresh watering hole!

Sitting outdoors on the sunny side of the Boulevard for a brief spot of refreshment, we overheard a terrific diatribe by a bunch of starving college students.

"We haven't used a car since school got out," said one. "And we've figured out it's way faster as well as cheaper to ride our bikes to work and the store."

"I'm actually enjoying shopping for my food on a daily basis, by bicycle," said the cool boy with a beard. "We met my Mom at a restaurant for dinner one night and we beat her there on the bikes."

The conversing on economical benefits of bicycles went on for quite a while. The sight of so many cyclists taking to the sidewalks and bike paths reminds me of the year I spent working in Cambridge, England, the quintessential college community where town and gown has since decades past taken almost entirely to pedal power as opposed to clogging the curious alleyways and commons with cars.

We have a long way to go in the suburban areas of America, where car has been king for so many years. Despite growing ranks of luxury leisure cyclists taking to the back roads of Marin County and wine country on thousand dollar models of mechanical supremacy (with pricey Tour-De-France style outfits to match), it's the burgeoning round-town cycling bug which will make the biggest difference within our communities and personal cash-flow.

Huffing and puffing my way back up B Street on the steep return trip portion of this morning's foray into fitness and efficiency (with tonight's dinner of Tagliaferri's fresh ravioli tucked carefully into my backpack), I took note of at least two middle age couples cycling merrily downhill on tandem bikes to take care of their weekly errands. No spandex required. And the scores of teenage girls who gracefully pedal around P'Town in their summer frocks and sandals set a trendier tone for bicycle transportation as the norm.

Helmets are essential as a legal requirement for under 18s and a good idea for anyone attempting the rugged roads of coastal Sonoma County and beyond, but to potter down town to the post office and back it's not an absolute necessity (taking care at crossroads) to make it a bad hair day. No excuses. Get on yer' bike!

Note: Northern California wildfires are still blazing into the thousands of individual corners of the countryside, though today's cooler climate is diffusing the risk levels of additional blazes. The sky over Petaluma is blue with fluffy white clouds for the first time in a week. Perfect for bike riding. Make hay while the sun shines..

An Icy Blast From BC

Northern Exposure. That's my icy blast of a blog theme for January. For here I am this winter's afternoon clinging to the heat vent by the side of a handy hotel desktop computer in the midst of chilly British Columbia.

Travel opens the eyes and that's for sure. In this instance I can barely see out from beneath my multi-colored wool hat and Lesley's argyle scarf which she so sensibly lent me prior to my roving reporter's stint up here in the extremities of the Northern Hemisphere.

Having never before crossed the international border into Canada (Seattle having been the furthest expedition in that general direction), I was keen to see the snow-capped mountain ranges of Vancouver and the Northern Territories from the window seat of two connecting flights. What I hadn't ever expected was to experience this spectacular sight of so much snow quite this early in the year!

Hence my on the road reporter's apparrel of sixteen layers and then some (The Italian husband's ski thermals are working wonders on the upper bod, but two layers of socks and fur-lined boots have failed to beat the biting cold on my poor California-pedicured toes!)

How do these hardy Northerners manage to motivate themselves into any sort of productivity in this climate? Blimey, just figuring out how to sling the straps of my sturdy reporter's bag over such bulky layers of clothing is an episode of determination in itself.

It is true that the Canadians are a friendly, welcoming lot, on the whole. My British accent and California driving licence are a winning combination of utter confusion for the locals in this neck of the woods. Remote as it may be, they've all heard of Sonoma County, and more than a couple have chastized me for not bringing along some wine!

Well, I've work to do before heading back South to SoCo tomorrow, so it's over and out from British Columbia. Now, where did I put those gloves?