Category: Places to Visit

Wine tasting comes where you find it.  For the most part, the most enjoyable tastings are at wineries alongside the vineyards where the grapes were grown.  But urban tasting has its charms as well, as we have written about before.  One of the great growing regions in Southern California is the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County, but it’s not close to anything much, unless you just happen to be passing through Lompoc.  For that reason, many of the best vineyards in the county have opened tasting rooms in the city of Santa Barbara.

There are two totally different wine tasting experiences to be had in Santa Barbara.  Uptown has some very elegant tasting rooms, many in chic shopping malls off the major streets.  We’ll save a write up on Uptown for another issue.  The other locale is called the Funk Zone and not without reason. Get ready to PAR-TEE!

Now that may not be to your taste in wine tasting.  If so, visit the Funk Zone as early as possible in the morning before the crowds arrive.  If the weather is good – and it’s almost always good in Santa Barbara – you can be sure that the crowds will arrive.  It would be one thing if we had to report that the wines weren’t worth tasting and the servers knew nothing about what they were pouring.  However, there are quite a few interesting wines to be tasted, often from small producers who can’t afford a fancy tasting room.

We don’t pretend to offer a comprehensive tour of the Funk Zone (or anywhere else, for that matter) but we can offer a few suggestions for some interesting tasting there.  Of course, being close to the Santa Rita Hills means that there will be a lot of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to be sipped. And yet…

Photo courtesy of Discover Santa Barbara

Our favorite discovery in the Funk Zone was Kunin Wines.  The tasting room has the atmosphere of a breezy shore house and indeed it’s a short walking distance from the Pacific.  The majority of their wines are Rhône varietals: Viogner and Syrah leading the pack.  They have a few blends that they compare with Châteauneuf du Pape. Okay, they’re nothing like Châteauneufs but they are really nice California Rhônes which isn’t a bad thing at all.  We were there early in the day and it was quite sedate; when we stopped by in the afternoon a frat party had broken out.

Nearby is the Santa Barbara Wine Collective, a huge barnstyle building, which features a number of producers, most focused on Pinot Noirs.  You can sample all the wines from one wine maker or do comparative flights from several.  Our favorites were Babcock and good ol’ Fess Parker of Davy Crockett, Dan’l Boone and Pinot Noir fame.  We were pleasantly surprised at the knowledge of our server who seemed too young to know that much and explain it that well.  A nice touch is The Lark restaurant’s cafe in the same space, where you can get good food to go along with your tasting.

Photo courtesy of the Santa Barbara Wine Collective

Another chance to experiment is at the Valley Project, which offers a tour, in your glass,  of some unfamiliar grapes and terroirs of Santa Barbara County.  The building itself is an attractive, open space with a map of the region on an enormous chalk board behind the bar.  Not all the wines were to our taste, but it was a good chance to see what else was going on besides Santa Rita Hills Pinots.

If you’re young or young in spirit, the Funk Zone is for you.  If you’re not, you can still have a very good time there if you plan your day right.

If you’re driving north from Los Angeles to go wine tasting in the Central Coast, you will probably pass through or near to the town of Solvang.  If you’d like to do something different and just a little strange, get off the freeway and visit.  In the early part of the 20^th century, a group of Danish families emigrated to Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley and set up farms.  The Danes set up a town called Solvang that reminded them of Denmark, with architecture, churches and food stores evoking their homeland.

Of course, when you have a place that is a bit exotic and quite scenic, tourists will follow.  So while the farming tradition of the area around Solvang is very much alive, the center of town is an attraction, one verging on cutesy.   The buildings are half-timbered and the windmills actually turn.  There’s a replica of Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid, and a bust of Hans Christian Andersen and restaurants where you can get smørrebrød, the famous open-faced sandwiches that are a staple of Danish fare.

Photo courtesy of Solvangusa.

We have recently been in Denmark and can assure you that Solvang has no more to do with that country than Las Vegas does with France.  Still, this doesn’t take away the pleasure of pretending you’re in Denmark.  Solvang really is pretty and it really does have its roots in Danish-American history.

Solvang may be an out of the way little town for many California visitors, but not for those who are there for wine tasting.  It is located at the doorstep of the Santa Rita Hills, which is the source for some very fine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Many of the best wineries in the Santa Rita Hills have tasting rooms in the city of Santa Barbara, enough so that travelling to the vineyards for tasting purposes is unnecessary.  But if you like looking at rows of vines while you taste, Solvang can be a good place from which to travel into the Santa Rita Hills.  Moreover, it’s a short drive to Los Olivos and you’re already in the Santa Ynez Valley, so you’re right in the middle of Wine Country when you’re in Solvang.

Photo courtesy of Hendrik Breuer.

You don’t even have to leave Solvang to go wine tasting if you don’t want to.  There are at least a dozen tasting rooms in the town, of varying quality.  (Au Bon Climat used to have a tasting room there but has since moved into Santa Barbara.) We would advise that the reason to taste wine in Solvang is more about the atmosphere than the wine itself.

Wine Country is about wine, to be sure, but there are usually other things of interest, worth a visit.  You wouldn’t go wine tasting in Champagne without going to  Paris or in Tuscany without seeing Florence or Siena.  So it’s pleasant to take some time to visit a town like Solvang if you’re wine-tasting in the southern end of California’s Central Coast.  Okay, it’s not Paris or Florence, but Solvang and the Santa Ynez Valley can offer a pleasant way to spend a day of vacation or a weekend besides wine tasting.

At the southern end of San Francisco Bay there is the town of Santa Clara, which lends its name to the valley that runs south of it to Gilroy (called the “Garlic Capital of the World”), as well as to the AVA for the wines made there.  There are, according to the local wine trade association (http://www.santaclarawines.com/santa-clara-valley.html) twenty-five wineries in the valley, although that’s just the association’s membership, since we know a few that aren’t listed.

The northern end of Santa Clara Valley is better known by another name: Silicon Valley.  The town of Santa Clara abuts San Jose and other famous software producers, like Los Gatos and Sunnyvale.  These places are possible reasons you might be in the area, beyond wine tasting.  It was the case for us; we tacked on some tasting to a business trip.  Silicon Valley, of course, has long shed its agricultural roots but there are a few wineries that could be interesting to visit.  J. Lohr Vineyards (https://www.jlohr.com/) is on a typical urban street in San Jose and has little or no wine country ambiance, but it does have some creditable wines that are often found in wine stores and on restaurant lists.  We have previously written about Testarossa Winery (http://www.testarossa.com/) in Los Gatos, which offers a superb tasting experience and some top-notch Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays as well.  Maybe you can cut your last meeting short and visit these two, although they are quite far apart.

As is the case in much of California’s Wine Country, Route 101 is the main stem through the more southerly and more rural section of Santa Clara Valley.  A half-hour out of San Jose you’ll find a number of wineries to visit.  This is the Morgan Hill district and is the area in Santa Clara Valley with the densest population of wineries.  We’d like to report on some great discoveries, but for the most part we weren’t as impressed with the wineries here as we were with those in the urban areas.  There was at least one that was a gift shop that made wine rather than vice versa, so beware where you go.

Sycamore Creek Vineyards (http://www.sycamorecreekvineyards.com/) offers a very modernistic picnic area, with high metal stools clustered around stone planters with what appear to be olive trees rather than sycamores in the middle.  The winery is a massive industrial building with the barrel room and a metal bar to one side.

Sycamore Creek’s picnic area.  Photo courtesy of Léal Vineyards, Inc.

Kirgin Cellars (http://www.kirigincellars.com/) is California Wine Country the way it used to be…a long, long time ago. They have been making wine since 1916, and it shows.  Their original tasting room is still there and it gives the impression that hobbits must live there.  They also have another, larger tasting room that is actually modern but designed to look as ancient as the original one.  With a wood-burning stove in the middle, it truly reminds you of wine making and tasting in another era.

Kirgin Cellars “new” tasting room

The town of Morgan Hill is where you’ll want to go for lunch.  We learned after we visited that Morgan Hill is heavily populated by Silicon Valley zillionaires and it seems to follow as day follows night that people with money like to dine out.  Monterey Road, not far from Route 101 is chock-a-block full of restaurants, some upscale, some not.  You’ll have quite a few to choose from.

Santa Clara Valley is scenic in much the same way that California Vineyard areas are all scenic.  The hills roll, the roads twist and the vines grow in serried rows up to the horizon.  We wouldn’t call it a destination locale in Wine Country, but if you happen to be in the area, overall it makes for a pleasant tasting experience.

Many of the world’s great cities have landmarks that are central to their images.  Tourists and locals alike gather at the Eifel Tower, Big Ben, the Coliseum and Time Square.  Other cities without such internationally known monuments offer something different; they’re great hanging out cities.  San Diego is one; so are Milan, Amsterdam and Madrid.  Let us introduce you to yet another, Copenhagen, and in particular a wine taster’s destination bar known by its address, ved Stranden 10.

First about the city.  The most famous locale in Copenhagen is Nyhavn, which is a long harbor, mostly for fishing and tourism boats.  All the buildings along the harbor are brightly colored and alongside is a long row of cafes under welcoming umbrellas.  Of course it’s full of tourists, but you find Danes there as well, especially at night. As we said, it’s a great place to hang out.  But so are the sidewalk restaurants on Gothersgade; the big square in the fashionable shopping district, in the middle of Højbro Plads (or Place); and the Street Food center across the main harbor.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s “new harbor”, only 300 years old

Which brings us to ved Stranden 10 (http://www.vedstranden10.dk/). It’s located alongside a canal  and from the outside, it’s an unassuming building on a quiet little street.  In warm weather, they have tables outside along the canal.  Ved Stranden 10 is a wine store and also a wine bar.  Inside, there’s a very small bar up front with pourers, waiters and customers scurrying about like mad.  There are a few tables and stools along one wall, but for the most part all you can do in the bar is stand and order.  There are several more rooms that are far more like someone’s rather chic Danish Modern living room than a wine bar.

So far, so nice.  What differentiates ved Stranden 10 from all other wine bars we’ve ever been to, is that most of the waiters are sommeliers and that there is no wine list!  Instead, you negotiate with your waiter.  He or she will ask, “What do you feel like drinking?”.  Maybe one wants a light white, somewhat austere, not very fruit forward and the other a robust red, chewy and full of fruit.  (That would be Lucie and Steve, respectively.)  The waiter will get a few glasses and bottles and pour little tastes.  “Does this work for you?”  If so, your glass will be filled.  If not, he or she will go get something else.  No one goes away disappointed.

Inside ved Stranden 10

You can’t say, “I’ll have a Pinot Noir” or a Bordeaux or a Sauvignon Blanc. They don’t work that way. You tell them you like Bordeaux but they don’t carry Bordeaux.  They will bring you a taste of what they think is similar to Bordeaux.   They have a lot of wines from obscure places, like Serbia or Turkey or some valley in Italy you’ve never heard of.  So the light white wine came from Sardinia and the big red was a Blaufrankisch from Austria.  We might have ordered those ourselves, but if there were something on a list that was more familiar, we never would have gotten to these wines.  The result is that we both got to drink some wines we weren’t familiar with, that met our taste preferences at that moment.

A word about the glasses.  If you choose to sit outside, they will use very nice glassware, but nothing you’d notice one way or the other.  But inside, they use some of the most delicate stemware we’ve ever drunk from.  The glasses are very light and the stems are so thin you feel like you’re going to snap them with your fingers.  (We didn’t.)  They don’t use them outside because the slightest breeze would knock them over.

Fair warning: you’ll have such a good time at ved Stranden 10 that when it’s time to sum up and pay, because you have no idea what the cost was of that glass of wine that you just ordered (remember, no wine list),  you’ll find that you had so many wines that the bill is bigger than you thought it would be.  You’ll probably conclude that it was money well spent, like we did.

This is one in a continuing series, irregular though it may be, about favorite wine bars where you can do wine tasting.  It wasn’t meant to be a series, but since we’ve already introduced our readers to the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto and L’Ecluse in Paris, then three such articles seals the deal. 

So let us introduce you to Reynier in the City of London, that is the sector of London known as The City, where all the financiers are.  Actually, many of them have moved on to Canary Wharf…Oh, forget about it.  This is the old, historic part of London, where London Bridge is, where the streets are tiny and curvy and have names like Threadneedle and Poultry and Pudding to memorialize the trades that were once practiced there.  And there are still many bankers and brokers and insurance chaps and they like to drink with their lunch.  Which brings us to Reynier.

Now what’s funny is that the name of the place is actually the Wine Library (www.winelibrary.co.uk), which isn’t such a bad name, but I’ve only ever known it as Reynier (pronounced RAIN-yay) and no one I know who goes there calls it anything else.  But other than the mystery of the name and the little streets, why should you go there?  Well, “Wine Library” should give you a clue.  It’s a fine wine shop with a  great selection, running heavily to Bordeaux and Burgundy.  “Wait” you must be thinking, “this was supposed to be about a wine bar, not a wine shop.”  And so it is, but with a difference.

Reynier wine Library.  Photo courtesy of Yap.

As you can see from the photo, there are a lot of wine bottles and we can assure you that they are all for sale.  And you can see that there are tables.  That’s because you can buy a bottle, pay a small corkage fee and drink the contents on the premises.  Of course we can hear you objecting that you’d never sit down and drink a bottle by yourself.  Indeed not! So go to Reynier with a friend or two.  Which is exactly what all those bankers and brokers and insurance chaps do at lunch time.

It’s not French cooking, or English or Italian because there’s no cooking at all.  What there is is a magnificent spread of pates and hams and terrines and cheeses.  And grainy mustard and crispy baguettes.  And of course the wine you just bought.  No king ever had a finer repast.

Photo courtesy of Reynier Wine Library.

I distantly remember seeing the room in the picture with the chairs and tables, but if you want to move with the in crowd you go to the cellar         (which is where the buffet is) and sit with the fellows in the skinny suits with wide chalk stripes and loud ties (i.e., the finance set) where you will rest your backside on a low stool and eat off the top of an upturned barrel.  If you’re with a few other people, you’ll have to shoulder your way to a seat.  It’s worth it because when you’re with a group you’ll run out of the first bottle rather quickly and someone will have to get up and buy another, and maybe another after that.  And they say that they return to work after lunch?!?

Great wine, great food, history and the three new friends you’re bound to make at lunch.  What could be better?  Come and get it while the dollar is hot and the pound is not.

There are other wines to drink in California’s Amador County, but the main reason to go wine tasting in this part of Wine Country is to try the Zinfandels they’re famous for.  There are wineries all over the county, but the greatest concentration of them is in and around the town of Plymouth, mostly on or just off Shenandoah Road, also known as the Shenandoah Valley, about 50 miles east of Sacramento.

There is also a fair number of wineries about a half hour north of Plymouth in another town called Placerville.  We haven’t visited there yet so offer no opinions in this article.  If you have  several days, by all means try locations other than Plymouth, but we recommend against doing a lot of tasting in one place and then driving for some time to another. You mostly drive on small roads.  Keep it easy and keep it safe.

While many of the wineries have built glass and steel tasting rooms, none of them come close to palatial.  Many wineries, including some of the more popular ones, are located in wooden buildings.  They are hardly sheds, but they do project a rustic ambiance that, overall, describes Amador County.  There are a lot of ranches around the county.  You definitely know you’re in the country when you visit there.

Photo courtesy of Helwig Winery

One  feature of Amador county wineries is that many of them have restaurants.  Among them are Villa Toscana and Renwood.  You’d better look for them if you want something to eat because once you’re down the road in the Shenandoah Road it’s a bit of a drive back into town, and event then there aren’t many places to eat.

Photo courtesy of Renwood Winery

With the restaurants in the wineries, the wine tasting experience is different. You feel more like being in a bar and grill than in a tasting room.  At one place we saw people sitting on bar stools ordering plates of cheese and charcuterie, in another one just besides the tasting room was the restaurant.  Lucie felt that it was more commercial and that people living around the area go there to party. They seem to consider the wineries like their local bars which takes something away from wine tasting experience.

You’re not quite in the mountains in Amador County but you certainly are in the foothills of the Sierras.  Thus there are quite a few wonderful views to be had on a pretty day.  We’ve also had the experience of being there on a rainy, foggy day and you do feel a bit closed in.

Among the wineries to consider when you drive out to Amador County (and you will drive as there are no commercial airports closer than Sacramento, forty miles away) are Renwood, Helwig and Turley.  Renwood is the biggest, most commercial winery in the region and its Zinfandels are widely available.  Helwig has a rather large tasting room, made of wood and offers excellent views.  Turley is interesting because it’s the northern outlet of the same label in Paso Robles.  We are familiar with the Central Coast winery and often buy their wines but we found virtually an entirely different selection in Amador County.

Turley winery in Amador County

There’s always a reason to go for a tasting trip anywhere in Wine Country.  There are some first-rate wines to be experienced in Amador County and if you are a Zinfandel fan you’ll find much that will interest you and a few wines that you will find exciting.  Wine tasting in Amador County is certainly is more than “a pleasant day in the countryside” destination.

We have found that the toughest times on a wine tasting trip are the hours after wine tasting and before dinner.  You’ve come back to your hotel from your last winery of the day, maybe gone for swim, freshened up…and now what?  On other types of vacations, you’d find a nice lounge and have a pre-dinner drink.  But you’ve been sipping wine all day and you’ll possibly have some more with your meal, so more alcohol at this point is not a good idea.  A little shopping in Sonoma, Yountville, Healdsburg or St. Helena would be nice but the stores are all closed.  Where to go?  What to do?

If you are in or around Santa Rosa on a Wednesday evening in warm weather, here’s a suggestion: the Wednesday Night Market on 4^th Street near Courthouse Square.  If you’d like to spend a little time getting to know the local populace and not just hanging out with wine snobs, come on down.  There’s a high chance that you’ll be rubbing shoulders with the same people who farmed the grapes and made the wine that you were sampling all day.  They’re out to buy things they need, listen to some music, party a bit and generally enjoy themselves.  You can join them.

The Wednesday Night Market is actually a street fair and a farmer’s market mixed together.  It’s a long row of little tents where vendors sell food, drinks, crafts, art, knickknacks, household services and, most particularly local produce.  Scattered among the booths are music venues, leaning heavily to country & western and Mexicana.  People use the term “dancing in the streets” to imply joyous celebration, so on these summer evenings you can come be a part of it.  There are also many children’s activities, which for some wine tasting visitors may solve yet another problem.

You can enjoy an ambulatory meal of local specialties, mostly Mexican-inspired, like tacos and grilled turkey legs.  Of course, the usual hot dogs and pizza are available too.  (The food at the numerous street fairs in New York City are more Italian-flavored.  We didn’t see any calzones or zeppoles in Santa Rosa).  There are little terraces where you can sample Sonoma County wines, which you have probably been doing all day anyway, or chug a cold beer on a hot night.

Photo courtesy of the Rincon Valley blog

The best of the best of the Santa Rosa street market is the produce.  In case you had forgotten, you will immediately remember that California is the fruit basket of the United States.  Go from one stall to another and vendors will offer you samples: peaches, plums, radishes, strawberries, carrots, cherries, melons and tomatoes.  Oh, the fruits and vegetables of summer in California!  Everything is fresh, colorful and bursting with flavor.

Photo courtesy of KQED

You, or at least most of you, don’t live in or near Santa Rosa, so what are you going to do with anything you buy?  Hopefully you have a refrigerator at your disposal at your hotel, so your purchases will last a few days.  Even so, your mouth will be bigger than your belly.  So what?  Of course, it’s always a shame to throw away food but the prices at the Wednesday Night Market are so low, especially with regard to the quality you get, that we’re probably talking about less than you paid during the day for a tasting at a single winery.  So get yourself peaches or strawberries that you’ll remember forever.

In 2017, the market will occur on Wednesday nights from 5:00 to 8:30, from May 3 to August 16.  Enjoy!

The city of Siena in Tuscany has a particular  advantage for wine tasters.  It is in a central location with Chianti to the North, Montalcino and Montepulciano to the east, Bolgheri to the west and Maremma to the south.  Of course, it has the drawback of not being close to any of these famous winemaking areas, so visiting any of them entails a bit of a drive.  But beyond access to vineyards, Siena is a special place to visit if you are going to go wine tasting in Tuscany.

The city has three great attractions that should not be missed: the Piazza del Campo and the Duomo or cathedral.  The famous horse race, the Palio is run in the piazza, with the winner gaining local renown for the rest of his life.  But it is very crowded and doesn’t give you the real sense of Siena.

We said three attractions; the third one is everything else.  By all means, have yourself an apertivo in the piazza at sunset and admire the warm color of the campanile.  Stand in awe of the richness of the cathedral, not only above you but at your feet.  And then walk around the town.

A good starting point would be the Shrine of Santa Caterina (or Saint Catherine), Italy’s patron saint.  This is the house she grew up in, today decorated by murals of her life and works.  Even non-Catholics should be impressed.  Then, when you walk out, turn left and then left again up the step-street called Costa Sant’Antonio.  You’ll pass – or better yet, you won’t pass – a tiny restaurant called Osteria La Chiacchera – perched on the stairs.  It is so steep that front legs of the tables are six inches longer than the back ones.   At La Chiacchera they are dedicated to keeping the rustic cuisine of Tuscany alive, so you can have rabbit with olives or pork riblets and potatoes that you won’t find elsewhere.

If you turn left down an alleyway called the Vicolo Campaccio from the Costa Sant’Antonio, you’ll come to the Basilica San Domenico, which is the repository for relics of Santa Catarina.  Frankly, we think it has much more to admire from the outside than in the interior.  Now turn around and admire the view of Siena stretched before you.  There’s a row of restaurants straight ahead, all pretty popular.  Among them is Pomodorino, our favorite pizzeria in Siena (in fact, in all of Italy).  We’ll leave the quality of the pizza to you, but it has unquestionably one of the best view of any pizzeria in the world.  (Other opinions are welcome.)

The view from Pomodorino

Siena’s main drag is the Via di Citta, which runs behind the Piazza del Campo and can be reached from it up a little staircase to the Piazza del Campo.  At that intersection is a gelateria called La Costarella that Steve liked better than any other in Tuscany. Then turn right onto the Via di Citta and you’ll come to the massive and forbidding but nonetheless inspiring Banca Monte dei Paschi.  The recent financial crisis has not been kind to the bank, which is now endangered.  It would be sad if it doesn’t make it because it has been there since the Renaissance.  As pretty as it is by day, it is magnificent at night.

Banca Monte dei Paschi at night

The antiquity of Siena is evident in the fact that it is still a walled city, perhaps still awaiting another barbarian invasion.  What amazes us is the countryside comes right up to the walls.  More so than in our other travels, it gives us a sense of what it must have been like to live in a great medieval city.  And as with so many Italian cities, there is art everywhere, on piazettas, on the sides of buildings, on any random street corner.  The trick for the visitor is not to get jaded, to realize that ancestors from another age so loved their city that they adorned it everywhere.

A Sienese street by night

Because Siena, like many Tuscan towns, is built on a hilltop, many of the streets are very steep which by night makes them very romantic or a bit scary, depending on your mood.  Either way, you know while you are there that you are amidst something very ancient and very rare.

 

 

Healdsburg is the gateway to the Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County and a backdoor into the Russian River area as well.  We think it’s fair to say it’s Sonoma’s culinary capital and it’s quite full of tourists at all times of the year.  These days it’s also the home of many in-town tasting rooms of some distinction.

There is some controversy over how to pronounce the town’s name.  Is it HELDS-burg or HEELDS-burg?  For a long time we said the former but now some locals tell us that the latter is correct.

We remember when the town, however you pronounce it, was a sleepy, almost dusty farmers’ village.  The first time that we visited Healdsburg together, in 2000, there was only one restaurant open where we could find lunch served at tables, as opposed a sandwich shop with fare to eat in the park.  If you went wine tasting in those days, it was a good idea to pack a picnic.  For the most part, we avoided going into Healdsburg when we tasted wines in Sonoma County.

Then in 2006 the New York Times published an article entitled, “Healdsburg, Calif., Emerges as a  Dining Destination” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/travel/20choicesideweb.html .  Was this the same place we knew?  Indeed not; Healdsburg had grown, flowered and become a destination in itself.  Of the restaurants mentioned in the article, Cyrus has decamped for Napa town, but Willi’s Seafood and Raw Bar is as good as ever and Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen is still sublime.  Alas, Bistro Ralph and its heavenly short ribs is now a memory but it has been replaced by an Italian bistro, Scopa.  Baci is another Italian choice down Healdsburg Avenue; Café Lucia serves nouveau Portuguese meals; and the Healdsburg Bar and Grill is there for a good, honest hamburger.  And if you still want that picnic, you can buy your gourmet victuals at the Oakville Grocery or Shelton’s.

Although the aforementioned tasting rooms and restaurants are a more than adequate reason to visit Healdsburg, one of the great pleasures of the town is just walking around the plaza at the center of town.  Okay, it’s touristy but it’s for a higher class of tourists, as snobbish as that may be.  There are galleries, ice cream shops, a kitchenware store, a few hotels and some bakeries.  No tee shirteries to be seen. In the center of all that is the plaza, a more than century-old park with towering trees and a bandstand in the middle.  Often the square hosts markets, antique shows and summer concerts.

Photo courtesy of the City of Healdsburg

A not-so-subtle change has occurred in tasting wine in Healdsburg.  There have been tasting rooms there for many years.  But in honesty and with no disrespect intended, the wines were not very good.  In the past few years, some excellent wineries have opened tasting rooms in town,  including La Crema, Siduri, Clos Pegase, Stonestreet and Hartford Family.  Each has its own personality, from relaxed to frenzied, but you can spend a day tasting great wine without driving between wineries.

There is a sort of cognitive dissonance about Healdsburg today.  It is very much a part of Wine Country and the tourism trade that has grown up around wine tasting.  But there is also more than a lingering memory of small-town America, especially in the plaza.  Instead of a town to bypass on the way to the vineyards, Healdsburg is now worthy of a visit for itself.

These days, it’s easy to find good, great and even exceptional wines in Wine Country.  The problem is how do you get the wine you like onto your dining room table?  If you live in the area of wineries you like, this really isn’t a problem at all.  You simply buy some wine, load it into your car and drive home.  But for those less fortunate and for those who like to include wine tasting in their travel plans, especially overseas, getting the wine home is tricky.

Wine clubs  Wine clubs are one way to solve the dilemma.  If you live in a state that allows out-of-state shipping (most of them, these days) joining a club means that wine will show up on your doorstep at regular intervals, usually four times a year.  This is, after all, the raison d’etre of these clubs in the first place.  It benefits the winery to be sure, but there’s a lot of benefit to the buyer as well, especially if you are a collector and are willing to let some of the wine age for a bit.

The problem – and this is a common theme – is the shipping cost.  Almost all clubs offer you a discount (20% is common) but the cost of getting the wine to you often cuts, if not wipes out, the discount.  Some wine clubs are becoming sensitive to this and are offering special deals and flat rate shipping, but this only benefits the individuals who buy in volume.  For example, a $15 shipping charge for three bottles adds five dollars to the price of every bottle.  That’s cost is not unusual.

Shipping services  The wine clubs are great if you want a case a year from one producer.  But if you are on a wine tasting trip, you are more likely to buy one bottle from each of twelve wineries than twelve bottle from just one.  Here’s where shipping services come into play.  Of course, there are UPS and FedEx and they are usually present in the towns of Wine Country.  But check first; not every common carrier has a license to ship alcohol and those that do don’t have it in every office.

Another alternative is specialized shippers whose primary business is to send wine home to people just like you.  They specialize in packing and shipping delicate freight, i.e., wine bottles.  A few that we have used are Fitch Mountain in Healdsburg, Buffalo’s Shipping Post in Napa and Safe Haven Wine Services in Paso Robles.  A quick Google search will help you find more shippers wherever you may be going.

A variant on these services is to let your hotel take care of it for you.  Many have arrangements with shipping services that allow you to bring your bottles to the front desk, fill out some inventory forms and they take care of the rest.  It’s very convenient and we’ve never had any troubles using the service from hotels we have stayed in.  But it is a bit nerve-wracking to leave your precious cargo in the hands of a hotel clerk.

The process of these services runs around $60 per case.  In other words, you’re back to adding five bucks to each bottle.  If you are proud of a fabulous little low-priced gem you found somewhere, an additional $5 takes away much of the bargain.

Lug it yourself  There is the option of carrying your wine home yourself.  The economics make sense.  Almost any winery will sell you a foam insulated box for under $10.  So fill it yourself and take it with you.  It may cost you another $25 to include the box with your luggage, so you might be saving $25 in total.  And, oh yes, remember to bring packing tape and scissors with you.

That may be good for your wallet but it’s bad for your back.  You have to get the wine into the back seat of your car (in summer at any rate; in winter it can go in the trunk), out of the car and into the terminal and then reverse the process on the other end when you land.  If your car is a rental, there’s one additional step.  Don’t even think about sending wine as luggage if you have a stop on your itinerary.

You are also subject to the tender mercies of two sets of baggage handlers.  For the most part, bottles we have taken home this way have arrived intact, but there have been some sad counter-examples.  When we travel to Europe, we generally limit our purchases to the legal limit (four bottles per couple), wrap the bottles in bubble wrap that we have brought from home and put them in our luggage.  We have had no horror stories thus far, but time will tell.