Wine Country Showdown: Sonoma vs Napa

We rented a car and headed out of the city, driving over the Golden Gate Bridge. About an hour later, we were in Sonoma County, which is a beautiful place. Lunch was at The Girl and the Fig, a great resteraunt with fig flavored beverages and wonderful, fresh food.

We had no grand plan, other than to see where the day took us, directed somewhat by the recommendations of the nice lady at the visitor center. Our first stop was Benziger Winery, which was flat out beautiful. We only had about three hours before the wineries began to close for the night, so we opted not to take the hour long tram tour of the grounds, though in hindsight, maybe we should have done it. I'm not sure we found another spot nearly as beautiful. Bonus, the wine was good! We had an enthusiastic and friendly wine guy telling us all about the wines, and every single pour was terrific. It pained me to pour some of the tastings out, but the pours were generous, and someone had to drive.

THe next stop was a place called Arrowwood, which at first appeared a little stuffy but actually was fantastic. The view was great, the wine guy encouraged us to take our time and enjoy some of the pours on the covered porch if we liked. Surprisingly, we both loved a Viognier, which was surprising not in that it was a good wine but because we both tend to favor reds. That Viognier was the only bottle we ended up buying the entire trip.

After that, it was right down the hill to Imagery Winery, which is the sister winery to Benziger. Where Benziger was more traditional, Imagery was more experimental. They even boasted a small art gallery to showcase the artist-commissioned wine labels for each bottle. Unfortunately, the wines were rather underwhelming. Not bad, just nothing that knocked our socks off.

We ended the evening at our little hotel in Calistoga, where we wandered a bit and found a nice dinner.

The next day, we took a short, impromptu hike up a hill and were rewarded with wonderful views of the town. After a quick stop at a winery in a converted gas station, we headed to Napa Valley, expecting a similar experience to the day before. We were surprised at the different tenor of the area. Where Sonoma was hilly, Napa was flat. Where Sonoma had interesting-looking wineries all throughout the area, Napa wineries all looked somewhat the same from the road. Where Sonoma wineries welcomed anyone, anytime during operating hours, many Napa wineries were by appointment only.

We did finally find an interesting place called Darioush, run by a Persian man named, wait for it, Darioush, and modeled after a palace. That place was fascinating. The staff clearly loves their boss, and no one blinked when we asked to share a tasting (rather than pay $40 each when most of one of the pours was going to go into the spit bucket, due to, you know, driving). Bonus, the wine was good, because of course it was. It's Napa.

We then found an Italian-style winery called Luna where the wines were slightly less sophisticated though still quite enjoyable and the sweet wine lady seemed genuinely surprised and touched when we left a tip.

Then, dinner at a French resteraunt in downtown Napa, where I was thoroughly confused by the fact that all of the house wines were French. We were in downtown freaking Napa and not one of the house wines was from Napa?

Our quiet rebellion to this was in each ordering a Napa (non-house) wine.

Overall, we both preferred Sonoma to Napa. The scenery is more varied and frankly, more beautiful, the people are more welcoming, the wineries have some variety and there's none of this by appointment only crap. We were surprised to not find a winery pouring zinfindel, and if we did this again, both of us would concentrate on the Russian River Valley. A lot of zin comes out of there, plus I have yet to try a Russian River Valley wine of any type that I didn't really like.

San Francisco: be who you are

I'm in San Francisco for a long weekend. To say that I love it here is an understatement. This city has good public transportation, including a very active uber network, there are great ethnic resteraunts on every corner, world class bakeries, great locally-made goods, fun shops, the ocean AND the bay - there is so much to do and see and eat here that it's just incredible. Plus, the weather is good.

What is especially interesting is the personality of the city. You can be who ever you want to be in San Francisco. Want to ride your bike down the street with a live chicken in a crate on the handlebars? Why not? Feel like roller skating your happy self down the street wearing yellow sequined hot pants and a hat with a red ball on top? Feel free. No one cares. No one looks at you funny. Well, I did cast a bit of a side eye towards that guy yesterday wearing nothing but a leopard print fuzzy coat with white fringe, a cowboy hat, and boots. No pants, as far as I could tell. But you also have me, in my mainstream jeans and hiking shoes and fleece vest and I have never felt like I didn't fit in, the way I can in some of the more hipster-ish neighborhoods in Baltimore or yuppie areas of DC. Even when I ate lunch yesterday in a Pakistani resteraunt or today in a Spanish tapas place both patronized almost exclusively by Pakistanis and Spaniards/Hispanics, respectively, the staff simply switched to English and seemed happy to have us there.

I have no doubt that the "be who you are" vibe is closely tied to the fact that this is, clearly and without a doubt, an anti-trump town. There is everything from "love trumps hate" signs to Donald trump piñatas and toilet paper. I got into a nice chat with a lady on a bus about the ACLU action to overturn Trump's executive order banning Muslims from the US. The police calmly escorted a group of demonstrators down a major road so that they could peacefully protest the pipeline today.

I don't know San Francisco history well enough to speak with any great authority about it, but I can't help but wonder if the modern-day attitude of acceptance stems from the time in our history when Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps. The American people don't intend to allow that type of injustice to happen again. Fast forward to today, where everyone is welcome, no questions asked.

Alcohol, my permanent accessory...

So, something I didn't think to consider when deciding whether or not to move to New Hampshire is the liquor law up here. It's bizarre.

If you want to buy beer or wine,  you can do so in a grocery store. That's a bit of a luxury, because in Maryland, you can't ever buy alcohol in a grocery store. I grew up with my parents always going next door to the liquor store for anything alcoholic.

If you want to buy wine and hard liquor, you can do so in the New Hampshire state-run Liquor "Outlets."

If you want to buy beer, wine, AND hard liquor all in one place, well, for that you have to go to Massachusetts.

I'm serious. Your other options are to order a drink at a bar or restaurant, or visit a winery's tasting room. I was all excited about that last option until I discovered that New Hampshire soil grows even worse grapes than Maryland. The local wines are ... not good.

What I really miss, though, are the boutique wine shops. The ones where they stock lots of low production wines from independent vineyards, and the staff all knows the inventory and can make informed and interesting recommendations. They tend to have a lot of fun mixed cases available for a bargain. They host free or cheap wine tastings, and often educational classes, too.

Man, I miss those shops.

Today, I went to not one, not two, but three different "outlets" to find wines by a particular label. One of the outlets has the meritage. Another has the cab. Yet another, in a town I have never heard of, has the riesling. Seriously?

And then, there is the fact that most of the wines stocked in the outlets are of the mass produced variety, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, doesn't leave much room for learning and trying new things.

You can bet I will investigate the local wine culture the next time I move to a new state.

This is the scene at the local grocery store chain that lets you pick your own six-pack. This is very cool,  except the beer won't ring up until you buy six. There were two different beers I wanted to try today, but could I just try those two, without buying four more I didn't want? Nope. Because nothing about buying alcohol in New Hampshire makes any sense at all.