Category: Places to Visit

Yeah, the name of this place to visit when you go wine tasting on the North Fork is just too, too cute.  Evidently, back in the mists of time, it was a simple trail that came to be known as the local lovers’ lane and the name, with a little editing, has stuck.  For the visitor to the North Fork, primarily interested in wine tasting, it offers several reasons to stop.

First, and perhaps foremost, it’s a place midway between Riverhead and Greenport where you can get something to eat.  Of course, if you’re going to be sipping wine all day, it’s important to put some food in your stomach.  So if you’ve visited one or two wineries already, you’d better stop and Love Lane is really the only place to go.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

There are two dining spots to choose from, Ammirati’s and Love Lane Kitchen.  With no criticism of the former, we keep going back to Love Lane Kitchen.  It’s the sort of eatery where everybody seems to know everybody, welcomes one another by first name and always has time for a cup of coffee.  There always seem to be a few moms with youngsters trying hard not to be noisy.  The menu is primarily sandwiches and salads, although breakfast can still be had through lunch time.

Oh, and the cakes are made by Mom.

Besides the food, there is an attraction to Love Lane that is more atmospheric than commercial.  The street is three blocks long but everything you might want to see is on only one of those blocks.  It hearkens back to a small-town America that may never have been quite so shined up for the tourists but that nevertheless was and still is real.  Trees line the street.  There are places to park.  The shops have old-timey storefronts.  And there’s a charming white clapboard church at one end of the street.

The shops on Love Lane do reflect the sensibilities of wine tasting tourists.  Lombardi’s Love Lane Market is the sort of gourmet grocery that would be right at home in New York City.  So are the cheese shop, the boutiques and the sweet shop(pe).  But they don’t have the feel of bits of Manhattan that people have dragged with them out to the country.  Locals patronize here as well, and they all stay open in the winter.

Sure, lots of countries have small towns.  In Bordeaux or Burgundy there are also little villages, each with un café, une épicerie and une église.  But those are French cafés, groceries and churches.  This is unmistakably an American small town, with a vibe more New England than Big Apple.

The other end of Long Island is Brooklyn, definitely urban.  The North Fork is rural and Love Lane is a corner of that lifestyle, only two hours away.  It is a destination in the sense that you would come there to have lunch and then stroll around.  If you don’t pop into every store or the wine tasting room that’s right there, you can see it all in ten minutes.  But those are ten well-spent minutes.

Right in the middle of Burgundy’s fabled Côte d’Or, there’s a hill.  It’s in the village of Aloxe-Corton, nestled next to Pernand-Vergelesses and Ladoix-Serrigny.  For lovers of Burgundy wines, these are not just the place-names of some tiny villages.  They’re the names of specific Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.  That hill is also the name of a wine appellation.  It’s Corton-Charlemagne.

Charlemagne.  Photo courtesy of history.com

No one encourages you to walk through the vineyards atop that hill, but no one stops you either.  And when you do, you can tell yourself that you’re walking in the footsteps of Charlemagne.  Yes, that Charlemagne, the fellow who was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor on New Year’s Day in the year 800.  Back in the day – way back – he owned the vineyards atop that hill.

There’s no particular reason to believe that Charlemagne actually trod through the ancestors of these vines.  But he could have.  And that fact alone allows you to indulge yourself in the ancient history of wine.  Today and for time immemorial, they’ve grown Chardonnay there and not just any Chardonnay.  These grapes go into the grand cru white wines that bear the name, Corton-Charlemagne.  Legend has it that Mrs. Charlemagne wanted him to drink white wine so his beard wouldn’t appear dirty when he drank.  Who knows, it’s true.

Okay, you’ve climbed the hill.  You’ve walked through the vines.  You’ve bathed yourself in history.  What do you do next?

For one thing, go back down the hill and visit the wineries in Aloxe-Corton.  There’s no shortage of wineries in and around this village.  The best known among them are Louis Latour, Corton-Grancey and Corton C.  Some of them offer both grand cru whites and reds, which is unique to this little spot along the famous Route des Vins.   (Most other Burgundian AOCs have one or the other, but not both.)

Corton C, also known as Corton-André and Pierre André Estates.  Photo courtesy of Le Bien Public.

Perhaps more so than any other locale in Wine Country, a major attraction of wine tasting in the Côte d’Or is the architecture.  Oh, Bordeaux and the Loire Valley have magnificent châteaux, but they don’t have the roofs like they have in Burgundy.  For centuries, the grandees of the region competed with one another in topping their homes with most elaborate tiling and the area around Aloxe-Corton has some of the most inspiring ones.

In particular, you should make a stop at Corton C (formerly Corton André as well as Pierre André and many names before that, over the centuries).  It lays claim to the Corton-Charlemagne hill and keeps it in production after all these years.  The château was built only in the 19^th century, replacing one from the 18^th century which sat on top of the 15^th century caves.  Once again, history flows through everything here.

The elaborately interlaid tiles, polished and resplendent in the sun, make this winery among the most photographed in the world.  And not just the roof.  The towers and pinnacles give the whole building a fairy-tale quality.  You expect to meet princes and dukes when you enter, but it’s only other wine lovers like yourself.

 

 

Going wine tasting on Long Island’s North Fork is a day trip for New York City residents.  Except it isn’t.  Figure two hours each way on the Long Island Expressway if you’re very lucky and it’s easy to see why it’s a good idea to plan for at least one overnight stay.  Moreover, that gives visitors a chance to take in the little villages and towns along the skinny peninsula at Long Island’s northeastern end.  (The southern fork is where rich New Yorkers go to get away from other rich New Yorkers.)

Photo courtesy of Pinterest.

Once you pass through Jamesport, Mattituck, Cutchogue, Peconic and Southold you’ll get to Greenport.  It’s the largest village on the North Fork, but it can hardly be called a town, much less a city.  It is where you’ll find the most inns, restaurants and retail establishments.

These days, the major industries in Greenport are tourism and wine, which are obviously related.  It’s a scenic village with roots back to the 17^th century, when it was settled by people expanding beyond New Haven in Connecticut.  At one time, fishing, oystering and whaling were the primary means of livelihood in Greenport.  The oceans were overfished and the waters became too foul for oysters and the North Fork became known for agriculture, in particular duckling and potatoes.

Greenport always retained its maritime character and many people still make their way there to sail their pleasure craft.  There is a thriving business in charter fishing, which is not our thing.  But we hear from others that at a non-industrial scale the waters are plentiful with bluefish, flounder and other flatfish, fluke, striped bass, porgies and sea bass.

Photo courtesy of Food & Wine Magazine.

We prefer to take our fish one at a time, on a plate with a little lemon sauce.  Greenport is famous for its restaurants, all nautically themed with names like the Frisky Oyster and Crabby Jerry’s.  Quite a few are elegant spots with fine wine lists and views of the marinas.  Others are more casual, with picnic tables rather than white tablecloths.

A half century ago, when Alex and Louisa Hargrave decided that potato fields might also do well with grape vines, they created an attraction that continues to bring many visitors to the North Fork and into Greenport.  Now, Greenport is not St. Helena or Healdsburg, but for those whose idea of a good time is a glass of local wine on a charming patio (AKA the readers of Power Tasting), Greenport is a place to visit.

There is a New England vibe to Greenport, some of which is mostly its natural heritage and little bit the creation of town planners.  Either way, a wine tasting trip with time given to enjoying the pleasures of an authentic fishing village, polished up to be sure, is well worthwhile.  Unfortunately, Greenport gets crowded in summer and empties out the rest of the year.  We enjoy a midweek getaway in late May or early September best of all.

This article is the latest in Power Tasting’s irregular series on great wine bars of the world, although the Maison des Vins isn’t exactly a wine bar.

Just off the main square of the village of Saint-Chinian sits a handsome stone building with a big sign announcing that it is the Maison des Vins du Saint-Chinian, the “House of Wine of Saint-Chinian”.   At first glance, it seems to be a wine shop but it’s not, even though you can buy wine there.  Then you might think it’s the local cooperative, where the local vignerons bring their grapes to be crushed and sold as generic wine from the region.  It’s not that either, but it is the headquarters for the association of growers and vintners of the Saint-Chinian AOC.

Go inside and you will find that it is the place for you to learn about and taste the unique characteristics of the region’s wines, of which more later.  You will be greeted by a staff member whose first task, in our experience, is to size you up.  Are you looking to buy a few bottles or are you there to try their wines?  It’s pretty easy to discern the tourists (they’re not speaking French, for one thing).  And if you aren’t a buyer, are you really there to learn or just to drink some free wine and then leave.

If you, like us, want to learn, the personnel at the Maison des Vins are eager to teach.  What are you interested in, red, white or rosé?  How much do you already know?  What kind of wine do you like?  The servers are all fluent in English, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Before you even get to taste any wine, you’re likely to get a geography lesson.  Your server will explain that the north and east of the Saint-Chinian region is an area of rocky hillsides, while the south and west are level plains.  The soils are schist in the hills and calcareous limestone and clay in the plains, and the qualities of the wines from those two areas differ accordingly.

With some idea of your tastes and level of interest, your server will pour a taste from their extensive rows of wine dispensers.  If you like it, he or she will offer you others like it.  And if not, you’ll get a chance to sample other styles until you’re satisfied.  As you’re tasting, and if you show that you’re interested, the server can tell you all about the vineyard where the wine comes from and the people who made it.  In all likelihood, the farmers/winemakers have been neighbors of the region for generations and all are members of the association and therefore part-owners of the Maison des Vins.

The association publishes a guide to all the member wineries which your server will be happy to give you.  It includes a map, so after you visit the Maison des Vins, you can get in your car (or walk up the street) and go to some of your favorites.  A word of warning: many of these producers are tiny, with their premises on little country roads.  Even with a map, an address, a phone number and a web site, they’re not always easy to find.

 

 

California is a state with many thrilling cities: San Francisco’s hills, San Diego’s sailing and Hollywood!  Alas, Sacramento is not thrilling unless you’re a politician, Sacramento being California’s capital.  But if you come for a visit without overwhelming expectations, the city has much to offer.

For one thing, it is ideally suited as a base for wine tasting.  It’s pretty much in the middle of Amador County, Lodi and Napa Valley.  If you don’t mind driving a bit, they’re each about an hour away from downtown Sacramento.  Because of work requirements we had the opportunity to live there for several months.  It gave us the chance to see the city as a bit of a throwback to the California of yesteryear.

Old Town Sacramento.  Photo courtesy of CBS Sacramento.

The Old Town section is a very deliberate recollection of those times.  It’s a state historic park, where they have carefully preserved commercial buildings from the mid-19^th century.  That date is important because of the great Gold Rush of 1849 that turned Sacramento from a sleepy Spanish mission town to a bustling metropolis.  Today, Old Town is a bit (well, more than a bit) touristy, but the buildings are real and you can try to imagine what it must have been like when the miners came into town.

Sacramento is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. It has badly flooded many times.  It seems that California either has a drought or way too much rain.  If you hit a rainy period, you can walk along Old Town’s riverfront and see the Sacramento threaten to spill over its banks.  It happened often enough that the city leaders raised up the Old Town section in its entirety, so you probably won’t have water lapping at your ankles (or higher) when you’re there.

One real attraction there is the Railroad Museum, with several old steam engines to gawk at.  You can event take a ride on an old train, up the Sacramento River.

The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest museum west of the Mississippi River, founded in 1885.  It has a rather nice permanent collection, many paintings from artists in the bay area and often hosts interesting exhibitions.  For a tourist, it’s good to know that you can easily take in the whole museum in an afternoon.

Sacramento is in an interesting place for eating out.  It is at the north end of California’s Central Valley, known as America’s Salad Bowl.  Thus there are many restaurants that feature “farm to fork” dining.  And if you have a bite or a drink near the Capitol, you’re very likely to be able to listen in as some politicos talk over the affairs of the day.

The crows come in at sunset.

We loved a particularly unique Sacramento experience.  Right at sundown every day, thousands of crows fly in from the fields surrounding the city.  They have predators outside the city but a lot less in town, so they congregate in the area around the Cathedral at 12^th Street and K, not far from the Capitol.  For about five minutes each evening, a thick cloud of birds, cawing like mad, settle in on the roofs, trees and lampposts.  Then they shut up and go to sleep.

Maybe you think that all Italian wines come from Tuscany and the Piedmont.  You can find wine being made almost everywhere in Italy and the biggest wine producer is Sicily. If you decide to visit that island for wine tasting, make sure you also include history, art and food on your itinerary.  You might arrive on a cruise ship or on a ferry, but most likely you’ll fly in.  And in that case you’ll come into Palermo.  Before you head out to the vineyards, you ought to see what this city has to offer.

Now, Sicily generally and Palermo in particular have an image problem – the Mafia.  Yes, there were and still are gangsters in Palermo just like we have them in US cities.  In our travels, we never felt the heavy hand of the Mob.  People did tell us that most of that had been cleaned up.  It’s mostly the tourists who want to see the places they know from the Godfather or take a trip to the nearby town of Corleone.  If you’re a tourist and want to see those things, go right ahead.

The Teatro Massimo

But instead of remembering the fatal scene at the opera house, feast your eyes on the Teatro Massimo, the largest in all of Italy.  It’s a masterpiece of 19^th century architecture inside and out.  Even if you don’t feel like taking in an opera, it’s the grandest hanging out and meeting place in Palermo.  So sit in one of the caffés around the perimeter of the piazza in front of the theatre, or loll on the steps with the younger Palermians or watch a political protest arrive.  You’ll feel very much a part of the scene.

Of course, you could go and see a grand performance.  A word of warning: Climate change being what it is, it stays hot in Sicily later in the year than in the past.  They didn’t install air conditioning in the Teatro Massimo, so be prepared to perspire more than a bit.

Just one of the Four Corners

Another sight not to miss in Palermo is the Four Quarters (or I Quattro Canti in Italian).  It’s a crossroads with massive sculptures and fountains on each corner.  They represent the kings who once reigned in Palermo and the city’s four patron saints.  Don’t stand in the middle to see them all; these are heavily trafficked streets.  But do wander about and take in each one in turn.

Palermo may be the street food capital of the world.  Wander through the back streets and markets and try a little of this or that.  Maybe it’s a good idea to ask what you’re about to eat before biting.  They make the most of every animal in Sicily.  We’re generally not big fans of tours, but you can find some street food tours that will take you everywhere and let you try everything (or at least everything you’d like to try).  But, oh, Sicilian pizza! And, ah, Sicilian gelati!  And especially, oh my, Sicilian rice balls (or arancini)!  Here they may be stuffed with meat and peas, or cheese, or tomatoes.  They’re coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried.  Have some – you’re too thin anyway!

Then head around the island and try the wine.

Toulouse is not a winemaking city.  It’s the center of France’s aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus there.  But it is surrounded by regions that do make wine, albeit not the most famous in France.  There’s Gaillac to the north, Madiran to the south and Minervoix, the best known, to the east.  It also has history and architecture and food, which makes it well worth visiting when you’re travelling for wine tasting.

The Romans called it Tolosa, and when the city of Rome was overrun by the Visigoths in 410 A.D., the Romans gave the invaders the southwest of France to get them to leave their city.  Toulouse was their capital as it was 800 years later for a large population of pre-Reformation heretics known as the Cathars.  These people were wiped out but the echoes of Catharism are still felt throughout the region.

Toulouse’s Capitole at night.

The current-day toulousains are justly proud of their history, but are more involved in 21^st century living than in the past.  For the visitor, it is preferable to sit in their main square, the Place du Capitole, dominated on one side by a building that is part city hall and part opera house.  The other side of the square is lined with cafes, under broad umbrellas.  There you can sit and eat the local sausages, which are the envy of the rest of France, along with a bottle of local wine.

Grand buildings along the Garonne river.

Then take a stroll along the banks of the River Garonne, which starts in the Pyrenees and ends up in Bordeaux (you may have heard of their wines) before debouching into the Atlantic.  There are numerous grand buildings once erected by the elites, mostly in the 19^th century.  Not far is what little is left of old Toulouse, since much of the city was destroyed in the many wars that beset the region.

The Canal du Midi begins in Toulouse and connects it with the Mediterranean.  Once a commercial waterway, the canal today is mostly navigated by tourists who get aboard the boats called péniches and visit the many picturesque villages along its banks.  If you don’t want an extended trip, you can take a tour that just goes around Toulouse’s part of the canal for a few hours or, as we did, take a day trip about 20 km. away and back.

You cannot visit Toulouse without indulging in its greatest contribution to French gastronomy: cassoulet.  Now the city’s claim to this dish is disputed by the people of the town of Castelnaudry along the canal to the east and the Gascons further north.  This hearty combination of white beans, confit de canard (duck) and the aforementioned Toulouse sausages has become available in many North American restaurants, but we can assure you that the real thing in the real place can’t be beat.

Power Tasting doesn’t usually get into restaurant reviews, but we have to tell you that we found that Restaurant Emil serves the best cassoulet in town.  Even more, you can buy a large can of it there, enough for dinner for two, put it in your suitcase and have it when the cold winds blow back at home.

 

 

There are many wonderful reasons to visit the Loire valley.  It’s close enough to Paris that you can make a day trip of a visit there.  For us wine enthusiasts, there’s Vouvray, Chinon, Sancerre and Muscadet to occupy our tasting hours.  Those wines go well with the Touraine cuisine (named after the central town of Tours).  And there’s the history, so much of it, best exemplified by the castles that line the river Loire and other streams nearby.

Photo courtesy of YouTube.

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, French monarchs and nobles preferred to avoid the hoi polloi of Paris and so built magnificent châteaux from which they could both rule and enjoy themselves.  There are many to visit, including Chambord, Blois and Amboise.  If you only have the time to visit one, we recommend that it be the Château de Chenonceau.

You enter the grounds down a long allée of plane trees until, seeming suddenly, a fairy castle appears before you.  That’s the entrance to the château, where you can and should sign up for a tour, available in many languages including English.  A guide will show you around the rooms, point out some interesting information about the gardens and explain the history of Chenonceau.

The château that’s there today wasn’t the original.  That one was burned down and replaced by a nobleman in generally the form we see the front of it today in the early 16^th century.  King Francois I seized it a few decades later.  His son, Henri II, set it aside as a love nest for his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  This didn’t much please his wife, Catherine de Medici, so she kicked out Diane and expanded the château to cross the river Cher.  [As you tour Chenonceau, you can see two gardens out the windows.  One was Diane’s, the other one Catherine’s.  The mistress got the better of the gardening competition.]

Because the château spans the river, it was used by Jews and other refugees from German-occupied France during the Second World War.  The Cher was the dividing line between the Nazis and Vichy France to the south.  Escapees would enter the front of the château and sneak out the back.

Photo courtesy of The Local France.

Perhaps the most unique and certainly the most romantic aspect of a visit to Chenonceau is to rent a little boat and row along the Cher, under the château.  There’s no other castle in all of Europe where you can do that!

The architecture of Chenonceau combines Gothic and Renaissance elements, so viewing it is another way you can experience history there.  Most of the rooms in the château are decorated so you can give yourself a sense of how royalty treated itself in the early Renaissance.  As Mel Brooks put it, it was good to be the king.  Now, of course, Chenonceau is a historic monument.  Wars and revolutions have not dimmed the elegance and attraction of this great castle.  Other than Versailles, it’s the most visited château in France.  When you are in the Loire valley for wine tasting, leave yourself some time for castling, too, especially at Chenonceau.

 

 

There are some fabled roads in America.  You can get your kicks on Route 66.  Ten cents won’t even shine your shoes on Broadway.  42^nd Street is naughty, haughty, gaudy and sporty.  There are no songs about California’s portion of US Route 101.  It runs mostly south-north from Los Angeles through San Francisco all the way to the state border and up to Seattle.  Interstate 5 runs parallel to it and it’s much faster.  The Pacific Coast Highway is much prettier.

Map courtesy of MapQuest.

But if you want to be serious about wine tasting in California, at some point you’re going to deal with Route 101.  It is the main stem for almost every wine making area in the state, with the very notable exception of Napa Valley.  It will take you to Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Paso Robles, near to Monterey, and Sonoma County.  If America had a route des vins, this would be it.

As you drive north, you have the Pacific Ocean on your left and the mountains on your right.  Mostly you can’t see the ocean; take the pacific Coast Highway if that’s your objective, but be prepared to crawl through towns.  But you can see the sea for a while as you approach Santa Barbara.  Around Pismo Beach, Route 101 skirts the coast along some rather impressive cliffs.

The road heads inland through as you get to Paso Robles where, surprisingly, the mountains appear on your left.  Route 101 divides the vineyard areas of Paso Robles.  On the west side, in those mountains (well, maybe they’re just foothills at that point) are the artisanal wineries that have raised this region’s reputation.  On the left are the mass production vineyards: endless, endless vistas of vines.  There are some quality vineyards these days on the east side of Route 101, but if you’re driving through you are overwhelmed by the quantity.

As you get closer to San Francisco, the endless vista is brutally modernistic office buildings in Silicon Valley, followed by the dreary traffic from the airport to the city.  Then, suddenly, the highway disappears and you are on city streets.  Use your GPS or your roadmap because it will take you to an American legend, the Golden Gate Bridge.  If the weather is good, you will offer you a glorious view of the City by the Bay.  If that famous fog rolls in, you’ll just have to take it on faith that the city is still there.

Once over the bridge, you’ll soon come to Sonoma County and one wine tasting region after another.  Petaluma and the Green Valley.  Santa Rosa and the Russian River.  Windsor and the Alexander Valley nearby.  Healdsburg and Dry Creek.  It’s not that you can spend days there; you can spend years visiting Sonoma County and you won’t see it all, because it changes all the time.

You can keep going and find more vineyards, but if you’ve made it from Santa Barbara to Healdsburg, you’ve seen the best of the Route 101, in terms of wine tasting, anyway.  Maybe they should write a song about it.

 

 

It is meaningful to say that you are visiting a specific area of Wine Country.  You don’t say, “We’re going to France for wine tasting”.  It’s too big and too varied, so you might say Bordeaux or Burgundy.  California is very large and varied as well, so you say Napa Valley or Sonoma County.  But if you say that you’re going wine tasting in California’s Central Coast, you’re covering an area so vast that it’s hard to say anything meaningful at all.

It’s more than 300 miles from Santa Barbara to Alameda County, the southern and northern extremes of the Central Coast.  Some AVAs are well established; they’ve been making wine in and around Santa Barbara since the days of the Spanish colonization.  Other areas have only recently realized that excellent wine can be made from grapes grown on their soil.  For instance, there have only been vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands since the 1970’s.  So let’s take an abbreviated tour up the coast.

• Santa Barbara is a delightful little city, with many excellent hotels and restaurants. There’s no wine grown inside the city limits, of course, but many excellent wineries have tasting rooms there.  Many of the wines come from the nearby Santa Rita Hills.  Pinot Noir is THE grape of this area. (Chardonnay is grown everywhere on the Central Coast.)  We’ve been particularly impressed with Sanford and Au Bon Climat.

The Bien Nacido vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley is renowned for its Pinot Noirs.  Photo courtesy of the Santa maria estate.

• A little further north is what we consider to be the heart of the Central Coast, around Los Olivos and Santa Maria. These were relatively quiet little backwaters until they were popularized by the movie Sideways.  Even so, until recently they were rather bucolic but have recently become somewhat more “Napa-fied”, to coin a phrase.  Still, there are many excellent wineries to visit and wines to sample.  Favorites of ours are Foxen and Beckman.  Pinot Noir and Syrah are the leading grapes.
• The San Luis Obispo region is coming on quickly, both in terms of the quality of the wines and its popularity for visitors. But SLO is not close to any of California’s major population centers.  For example, it’s four hours drive from San Francisco; the problem with hidden treasures is that they’re hidden.  We’ve enjoyed wines from Alban and Laetitia.  Pinot Noir is strong here but Rhône style wines are really the San Luis Obispo success story.

Downtown Paso Robles has become quite trendy.  Photo courtesy of pasoroblesdownton.org.

• Paso Robles is far enough from San Francisco to be far and close enough for a visit to be feasible. The west side of Route 101 is known for very large commercial wineries.  The east side is hillier and home to many artisanal winemakers.  Tablas Creek (our favorite) introduced Rhône grapes to the region, but Paso Robles is still known for powerful Zinfandels.
• There are some wineries to visit in the Santa Lucia Highlands, but most of the tasting is in Monterey. Look for robust Pinot Noirs here, such as Hahn or Pisani.  The beauty of the overall scenery around Monterey is world famous.
• Finally, in the area around Silicon Valley you’ll find quite a few wineries, but not as many that earn top marks. What was once fruit trees, ranches and vineyards is now mostly office buildings where the world’s technology is invented.  Nonetheless, we were delighted to discover the Pinot Noirs of Testarossa in this area.