Two Cities, Four Friends, Incredible Wine

I have come to believe that upon leaving for any vacation, you feel like you couldn’t have possibly waited another second to leave. It’s as if our minds only allow our bodies to go so far without having a destination into which we can escape from the daily grind, and once that departure time arrives, we’re ready for the break. This was true for my trip to Sonoma this past weekend.

I had finished reading through my students’ essays on Modernism while on the plane, which meant that the moment I stepped foot onto Oakland soil (concrete, actually), I was able to take that really deep breath I had been holding for about a week (grading gets downright oppressive this time of the semester).

The perk of flying with one airline ritualistically is that you stack up points almost without realizing it. My last trip to New Orleans for the Nelson-Bainer wedding put me well over the threshold of receiving a free flight. And since May, when the Rivers duo moved to NorCal, I have been craving a visit with them.

Dan and Rowan picked me up from the airport and promptly took me to lunch at Crepevine, a lovely little cafe in a lovely section in Oakland. I had a salmon kale salad with some hot tea (because the day was a bit chilly), Rowan had a savory crepe, and Dan had a PoBoy sandwich. All of our meals were delicious, affordable, and made with responsibly raised and purchased food. 

Across the street from Crepevine is Pegasus Books—a used bookstore where I was amazed to find a collection of Elizabeth Bishop’s paintings… that’s right… paintings. Who knew she did it all? Dan and I also each bought a volume of The Graphic Canon, which means it was a beyond-successful trip to the bookstore.

I have been to see Dan and Rowan once before, and that was for their wedding back in June, when they had only been in their new place for about a month. On the way to their apartment, Dan drove us by the lake, and since it was dusk, I was lucky enough to pass by the waterscape just as the sun was peaking through the clouds:

Once at their apartment, I noticed immediately how much more settled in they were than my last visit. Each little section of their home reflected Rowan’s artistic hands at work, and a work that seeks diligently to reflect who they are as individuals and as a couple. Have I mentioned yet that Rowan is a master at décor, as evidenced by their charming breakfast nook:

We spent the evening catching up, indulging in a cheese board, drinking wine, and awaiting the arrival of Jacque, another of our friends from graduate school who had just moved up to NorCal. Though we went to bed early in preparation for the big day of wine tasting, we ended up sleeping in a bit, enjoying the sound of rain outside the windows. 

On our way out of town, we stopped for some caffeine at Blue Bottle Coffee, which I highly recommend for anyone who enjoys seeing coffee and tea made in a way that is off the beaten path but also with extreme amounts of creativity. Hot beverages in hand, we were off for the forty-minute drive northwest into Sonoma County, home of the Pinot Noir. 

After visiting at a few wineries, we stopped in the town of Sonoma for lunch at Sunflower Caffe, which had yummy eats, a garden area with a fountain on the back patio as a place to sit, and a great selection of local wines. Downtown Sonoma is a gem in terms of small-town shops and restaurants. We walked around a bit, enjoying the quaintness of the place, then headed toward the Russian River to try out a few more wineries. My favorite of the day was Bacigaluci Vineyard; the wine there is our favorite from the trip, the vineyard is family-run (so we had access to insider info about the wines), and the production is small (meaning the wine we tasted was not mass-produced and thus special, worth savoring).

Travelling to small, boutique wineries and/or vineyards is the best way to do wine tasting because you feel the love these winemakers put into their product. Typically in such places, the vineyard has been in the family for generations, so you see the legacy fueling their efforts. And, the people filling your glass in the tasting room are often a huge part of the growing and harvesting and barreling and bottling, which means they put their own labor and love into the making of the very thing you taste. I have an artistic piece on my wall that says, “Wine is Bottled Poetry,” and though this phrase always rings true for me, it does so especially when at a winery. There is something incredibly poetic about a family working the land, cultivating a fruit, pulling a harvest, and then manufacturing a product. So much love, so much work. Then add in the amount of respect for mother earth they must have to make it all come together… it’s nothing short of inspiring. And so when I taste wine, and even when I drink wine, I try to always acknowledge that love and labor, to be grateful for it, to know I am imbibing that love, taking it as part of me. It’s a serious thing, drinking wine.

Later that evening, we dined at Flavor Bistro in Santa Rosa. The great thing about travelling around NorCal with a local is that you get to try all of the tried-and-true restaurants in the area. At Flavor, our meals were appetizing, the wine was local, and the service was excellent.

The next day, we enjoyed our breakfast at Hank’s Creekside Restaurant (a place Dan used to patron often while working on his master’s thesis at Sonoma State University). Our table was one with a view of the creek, which was full from the recent rain. After breakfast, we drove out to the coast to see Bodega Bay, which has a great little area to purchase locally caught seafood and enjoy a hot clam chowder. Here is the view of the bay:

During our drive back to Oakland, we stopped in Petaluma, which, like Sonoma, has a charming little town with several unique shops and restaurants. We stopped for a hot chocolate at the Petaluma Pie Company… I only wish I wouldn’t have been too full to get a pie! Everything in this shop looked appetizing.

I left Oakland feeling relaxed and incredibly grateful for the time I was able to share with my friends, incredibly grateful for the food and wine that nourished my body, and incredibly grateful that there are so many places in this world worth visiting and learning about… the world is so big, with so many towns and cities that I wonder how I will ever see it all!