Wine Country Weekend

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Steve and I took my parents to visit his parents in Santa Rosa. Our itinerary was packed, starting with a trip to Traverso’s, a local family owned and operated gourmet food and wine store that has been a Santa Rosa fixture for over 80 years. The store recently moved, and Steve and I had yet to visit the new location, and my parents had never been there at all.   The store is packed with interesting imported foods and wines, not to mention an amazing deli and cheese selection.  We chatted with some of the Traverso family in the store that day, Sandy, George, Mike, and Bill, who are long-time friends of Steve’s family, and picked up some made-to-order sandwiches for a picnic lunch.

Next stop on our itinerary: Korbel. Korbel’s grounds are beautiful, and the tour is pretty interesting as well. It takes you through the history of the company, which started out in the business of making cigar boxes, not champagne, and the methode champagnoise process of making champagne (mostly as it was done many years ago, without the automation that is certainly used now).

 At the end of the tour, groups are taken to an outdoor tasting area, where they can sample four selected champagnes and one additional taste of their own choosing, which is not limited to champagne, but can be one of Korbel’s other offerings including several brandies, fortified wines, and still wines.

The burning question: why can Korbel call its product champagne when it is not from the Champagne region of France?  Virtually all California sparkling wines are labeled as just that, sparkling wines.  Apparently, though, Korbel has special permission from French wine making authorities to style their product as champagne because the company has been around for so long and because it uses the methode champagnoise.

After finishing up at Korbel, we were pretty hungry, so we headed over to Armstrong Woods for our picnic lunch.  We ate in a convenient picnic area and then took a little walk to check out some of the old-growth redwoods.  The “Colonel Armstrong” tree, named after Colonel James Armstrong, who set aside the area as a “natural park and botanical garden,”  is over 1,400 years old.  Almost as old is the “Parson Jones” tree, which reaches over 310 feet high.  After some fruitless searching and throwing in the towel, we stumbled across the “Icicle Tree,” which was at one time covered with burls resembling icicles.  Unfortunately, many, if not most, of the burls have been destroyed by vandals, so I didn’t think it looked much like it was covered with icicles.

As if that wasn’t enough activity for one day, we then headed off to the Sonoma County Fair.  For us, the Hall of Flowers was the main attraction. 

This year, local professional florists, nurseries, and landscapers created some amazing displays focused on a dinosaur theme. 

Of course, we also spent some time viewing the fine art exhibition, and specifically the photography, and took a stroll down the midway, where Steve and I enjoyed some tasty caramel apples.  We didn’t have a chance to look at any of the animals, but we could definitely smell them. Overall, a fun weekend.

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