Category: Places to Visit

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.

Long before the Russian River became synonymous with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, it was a river…and of course it still is.  As the Russian River approaches the Pacific through Sonoma County, it is quite a beautiful river, at that.  It begins in Mendocino County and flows south, flowing pretty much along Route 101 (or vice versa, we suppose). As it enters Sonoma County, the river runs between Route 101 and Route 128, the main drag of Alexander Valley.  At Chalk Hill, it hangs a right and proceeds southwest to the ocean.  For those who come to Sonoma County for wine tasting and would like to do some touring as well, it’s this last stretch of the Russian River that’s the place to visit.

If you proceed south down Westside Road, you can catch occasional glimpses of the river, although you may be more attentive to the wineries that are there.  As Westside turns west and becomes River Road, you’ll see and pass over the river often.  In fact, it is the bridges that are for us the main attraction.

Wohler Bridge.  Photo courtesy of mattegray.net.  We recommend this site for a virtual tour of Russian River’s bridges.

One of these is the Wohler Bridge, where Wohler Road crosses to meet Westside Road.  It looks pretty rickety, but it must be pretty secure since it’s been there for 100 years.  It’s a one-lane bridge so you have to be careful that no one is coming the other way before you cross it.  Also be on the lookout for tourists (they could be us) having their picture taken while standing next to the bridge.  Nearby wineries include Gary Farrell, Moshin and Rochioli.

Hacienda Bridge.  Photo courtesy of historicbridges.org.

The Hacienda Bridge is at the point at which River Road merges with Westside Road.  You may see swimmers or boaters in the water.  We’ve always been there for the purposes of wine tasting, so we’ve never dived in ourselves.  There are many resorts in this area as well.  Korbel and Porter Bass are wineries in this area.

It’s likely you’ll want to visit in nice weather, which is a generally good idea.  It’s particularly important for the Russian River.  That pleasant waterway, well used for boating, rafting and swimming, can become a raging torrent in the winter months.  Flooding occurs frequently, roughly every other year since 1940, according to the San Jose Mercury.  There’s a lot to be said for going wine tasting in winter, but it’s probably not a good idea to plan on an excursion along the Russian River.

 

If you, like us, are from the East Coast, getting to either California or France is roughly the same hassle.  Once you have to get to the airport and wait for your plane, the difference between a six-hour and an eight-hour flight is not all that big a deal.  However, when you get off the plane in California, you’re still in the USA.  Everybody speaks your language and most things, aside from the vineyards, are just like home.  You can’t say that about a trip to France.

If the only purpose of your trip is wine tasting, the overall experiences of the two sectors of Wine Country are roughly equivalent.  The most famous regions – Napa/Noma, Burgundy, Paso Robles, Bordeaux, Santa Barbara, the Rhone Valley – will offer you many wines you might have heard of, if not already tasted.  While California has some out-of-the-way wine producing areas, such as Temecula or Amador County, wine is made almost everywhere in France.  And some of the less familiar locales, including Alsace, Beaujolais and the Languedoc, make world-class wines.

Lyon is known as the culinary capital of France.

It’s when you want to do something other than tasting wine tasting that France excels.  Yes, we love San Francisco and Los Angeles but they’re not Paris or Lyon.  There are few if any California experiences that can top a stroll along the Seine or eating onion soup at a sidewalk café.  Of course, it helps if you can speak French but honestly, it’s not essential.  Most French people can and will speak English.  They have the reputation for being arrogant and snobbish (as do New Yorkers) but we’ve never experienced any problems. (The nose in the air attitude of Parisian waiters is as much a part of the show as anything else.)

The Big Sur.  Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

California and France both have attractions when it comes to natural beauty.  There’s an unmistakable charm to the French countryside. The grandeur of some parts of California are matchless.  The French Alps are stunning and Big Sur, Yosemite and the redwood forests are treasures.  Centuries of wars have left scars across France; earthquakes and fires have done the same in California.  If you’re travelling to see marvelous scenery (in addition to wine tasting, of course) both will offer you more than you can take in on any one trip.

You can get memorable meals in California.  French Laundry and Spago are temples of gastronomy.  But France!  Yes, the French are justly famous (or infamous) for small portions of unknown ingredients with rich sauces.  But there’s hardly a village in the whole country where you can’t get a perfectly roasted chicken that you’ll remember forever.  We mentioned onion soup, but did we tell you about pâté?  Or cheese?  Or cassoulet?  Or, or, or?  On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for Mexican, Chinese or Japanese cuisine you’re going to do much better in California.

Altogether, it’s an individual decision as to which makes a more desirable vacation.  If you feel more comfortable in familiar surroundings, choose California.  If you like the exotic, France is a better choice.  We’re in the latter category, but then we speak French.  Either direction, you’ll taste great wines.

If you love wine tasting and you love Italian wines (that would include us), you should definitely visit Tuscany.  And if you visit Tuscany, you should definitely spend some time in Siena, a city where the best of the Renaissance seems to be just yesterday.  If you go to Siena, you should definitely wander around at night.  And if you want to have some fun while you’re wandering around, you should have some pizza at a restaurant called Il Pomodorino.

Il Pomodorino in Siena.  Photo courtesy of Casa-Worldorgs.com.

Power Tasting is not in the business of restaurant reviews, so we’ll simply say that you can get very good pizza at Il Pomodorino.  That’s a lot like saying you can get very good steak at Whole Foods.  It’s true, but it’s hardly exclusive.  There are a lot of places in Italy where you can get very good pizza and we’re not getting into the question of where to get the best pizza.  But we’ve never had more fun eating pizza than we did at this spot in in Siena.

For one thing, Il Pomodorino is always full and everybody else seems to be having a good time.  There are lots of families and therefore a fair number of children.  Dinner times, by American standards, are rather late in Italy.  We always wonder how the kids are going to make it to school the next day, but they do seem to make it.  There are also young lovers out on a date, older folks still convivial after a half a century, and the occasional tourists.

Unlike many other places in history-rich Siena, there aren’t that many foreigners dining at Pomodorino.  That may be because it’s a bit difficult to find the place if you’re starting from the center of town where most of the hotels are located.  Getting there from the famous Piazza del Campo at the very middle of Siena necessitates walking through some pretty dark streets and back alleys.  For the real Sienese, who mostly don’t live in the touristy areas, it’s not so hard to get to Il Pomodorino.  For them, it’s just down the hill from the big stadium, so maybe the crowds at the restaurant are just post-game celebrants.

The atmosphere at Il Pomodorino just draws you in.  When the other patrons hear you talking English, they’ll ask you where you’re from.  No matter where you live in the States, you’re bound to find out that someone at a nearby table has a cousin living there.  So you’re almost a member of the family already.

The view from Il Pomodorino.

While you can eat inside, you really want to join the party on the terrace outside.  Perhaps even more important, you are treated there to a spectacular view of the heart of Siena.  The dome and the roof of the Duomo (cathedral) and the Campanile (bell tower) are the most obvious sights, but the tiled roofs over the homes add to the viewing pleasure.  Just below you is the home and shrine of Italy’s patron saint, Santa Catarina.  So even if you’re not in a party mood, Il Pomodorino is worth it, just for the vista.

If you want to feel Italian and not just a visitor to Italy, we suggest you have a meal at Il Pomodorino.

Let’s say you’re on a wine tasting visit to the Southern Rhône.  Everywhere you go, there seems to be a mountain hovering over you.  One of them is Mont Ventoux, the Windy Mountain, and it is emblematic of the region.  You might wonder, what’s on the other side of that mountain.  The answer is that there are other wine producing areas, the Vaucluse and the Luberon.  They make pleasant wines, not as well known as the ones from the Côtes du Rhône.

The voyage over the mountains is worthwhile in itself.  For one thing, the panorama is breathtaking.    Wherever you’re driving from, you will cross many beautiful little villages as you drive over Ol’ Windy.  In many years, a stage of the Tour de France goes up the Mont Ventoux; they will return to the mountain this year.  No matter how hot it is when you leave the valley floor, you’ll find it to be quite chilly at the top of Mont Ventoux.  At the crest of the mountain there used to be a meteorological station; the building is still there even if it’s not used anymore.

The village of Roussillon.  Photo courtesy of Civitatis.

Once you get over the mountains, we recommend that you make your way to the village of Roussillon (pronounced roo-see-yon).  Although they’re spelled the same way, this village has nothing to do with Languedoc-Roussillon further to the west.  This quiet spot is ensconced in a Natural Regional Park, so that even if some tourists do find their way there, it is relatively unspoiled (or at least it was when we were last there).

Along the walls of Roussillon.  Photo courtesy of The Savvy Bostonian.

The town is built from stone quarried there in years past.  The rocks are full of ochre, a red-orange clay that has long been used to make artists’ paint.  Thousands of years ago, the prehistoric people living in what is now the south of France used it for body decoration and for coloring their famous cave art.  In Roussillon, the ochre creates a village where all the buildings are red, yellow, orange or shades in between.  French villages in general are charming; this one has charm pouring from every colored wall.

The best way to soak in all that charm is just to walk around.  There are steep stone streets (but no cars) where you pass quaint homes.  There’s an ancient Romanesque church, with “new” facades from the 17^th century.   There’s a market on Thursday mornings and there’s a town square in front of the Mairie (town hall) where you ought to stop for a coffee, a meal or a glass of wine

Most of all, you should walk the walls overlooking the old quarries.  Roussillon sits atop a mass of red rock, and you can see it from the walkway.  You can take a stroll on the Ochre Trail (sentier des ocres) and walk into the quarries.  In particular, try to see Roussillon at the end of the day, when the color of the setting sun makes the walls of Roussillon and its surrounding seem to come ablaze.  It’s an awesome sight that you’ll never forget.

If in your wine-tasting travels in the Southern Rhône you want to spend a little time in the perfect Provençal village, you’ll find it in Roussillon.

Readers of Power Tasting don’t need to be told that Sonoma County in northern California is a mighty nice place to visit.  Its size and vineyard diversity make it one of the best places to sample many of California’s finest wines.  However, Sonoma’s commitment to sustainability in its vineyards and wineries does offer a different reason to visit there.

The symbol found on bottles of sustainably made Sonoma wines

A lot of this is a matter of survival for the winemaking industry in the county.  It isn’t newsworthy that northern California suffers from many multi-year droughts. In fact, they are in one right now.  If the growers did not pay attention to water and land conservation, it would not be long before the quality of the wines would suffer.  And that would be the most positive result.  The worst case would be the inability to grow wine grapes at all.

The trade organization, Sonoma County Winegrowers, is justly proud that 99% of the vineyard acreage, more than 60,000 acres, in the county are independently certified to be sustainable.  The group established a goal in 2014 to make Sonoma County the premier sustainable winegrowing region in the world.  Their interest was not pure environmentalism.  While there are some massive properties there, the majority of vineyards are family owned and operated smallholdings.  Accordingly, they are not only preserving a crop but also a way of life.

Look carefully and you can see the hoses dripping water onto the vines.  Photo courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism.

How does all this make Sonoma County even more of a place to visit?  It’s difficult to watch water not evaporate or land not get parched.  We believe that every wine tasting visitor spends at least a little time looking at and admiring row after row of vines.  Now, when you go to Sonoma County, look a little more closely.  Do you see hoses running through the vineyard for drip irrigation?  Or maybe nothing to water the vines for those growers who prefer dry farming?  In the heat of the middle of the summer, are the canopies over the vines thick with leaves to inhibit evaporation?

Most of this doesn’t matter to your main purpose: trying wines.  But it should matter than it’s a concern for the grower and the vintner.  So when you get to the bar, maybe ask a few questions about what that winery is doing in the sustainability effort.  You may stir up a bit of controversy.  For example, the dry farmers think the irrigators are irresponsible, while the irrigators think the dry farmers are nuts.

So when we visit, let’s tell them that we appreciate what the Sonoma growers are doing to preserve both winemaking and the local community over the long haul.  They are the ones making the investment and we are reaping the benefits.  Letting the growers know that you’re grateful may elicit just the kind of personal interaction that makes traveling through Wine Country so rewarding.