Saturday, May 23, 2009
It doesn't seem possible that today is the last day of HOB 2009!
We began the day with one of our favorite wineries, Roessler Cellars in the town of Sonoma. While we're in Sonoma County all the while, this is our first visit to the town of Sonoma; it's about a 45 minute drive from the Hilton so we got an earlier start this morning. Gael and I "discovered" Roessler eight years ago (before the HOB tours). They were just setting up their tasting room in a little house just off the square in Sonoma. On our prior visit, they set out five different Pinot Noirs for us to taste, each one better than the one before. Fantastic wines!
This time they were just finishing a spruce-up of the tasting room as we arrived; they were still doing some stone work in front of the house but we were welcomed heartily -- and hosted by the owner, Roger Roessler. It's great when you taste wines with the owner; you learn so much about his process.
Gael tried to make off with a magnum of Bluejay:
Roger was amused, but not so much as to let her get away with it..
Fran (of course) joined the wine club.
Diagonally across the street from Roessler is the El Dorado Hotel with the El Dorado Kitchen in the lobby. This is a well-rated restaurant but we were not impressed with the food or the service today but hey, it's lunch time and ya gotta eat.
Sadly, for Fran, the restaurant didn't have a wine club.
Today is our driving day. We drove from Santa Rosa to Sonoma and next we have an appointment at Sheldon Wines over in Sebastapol about an hour from our lunch restaurant. We arrived on time and were hosted by (again) one of the owners, Tobe Sheldon. She and her husband Dylan created Sheldon to be just what they wanted for their life-work-fun. They'd traveled the world and knew exactly what they wanted to do -- and they're doing it so well.
The Sheldon tasting room is in a caboose in Gravenstein Station in downtown Sebastapol. There are shops all around -- and the Sheldon caboose is in the middle of the building:
It was a tight squeeze to get Tobe and the the ten of us in there but we persevered:
Fran joined the wine club.
We were going to visit one more winery, but practicality raised its head. Dinner tonight is a seven-course meal prepared by our son-in-law Matt and served by daughter Kristyn in their home. Seven courses demands seven wines and we'd been given a shopping list on Thursday specifying varietals we should bring for the seven wines we'd be drinking.
Of course we never had time during the days of high-speed tasting to acquire the necessary wines -- so we decided to forgo the last winery on our list and go instead to Bottle Barn.
Don't know about Bottle Barn? It's only the very best place to buy wine on the west coast -- maybe in the whole country -- and it's right in Santa Rosa. Fantastic selection and great prices; the best prices anywhere.
So we took Matt & Kristyn's list into Bottle Barn, snared one of the helpful staff, and picked the seven wines for dinner tonight. Fourteen bottles in all. It's going to be a very fluid evening.
Alas, Bottle Barn has no wine club; sorry, Frannie...
Back to the hotel for a brief freshening up and on to 1508 Ronne Drive (Chez Byrne) for dinner.
Yes, of course we had different glasses for each wine course..
Photo by Spencer Byrne
What a wonderful experience. Matt's food and presentation were five-star. Everyone said the meal was one of the best they'd enjoyed anywhere. And the wines went perfectly. When the evening ended (around 11pm) we were all ready for bed. Miraculously everyone made it back to their respective hotels and much-needed sleep. Many flights were early the next morning and it's still an hour's drive to Oakland and SFO.
Everyone made it home safely and agreed this was one of the best HOB Wine Tours ever!
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