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Me at Peet's
No Starbucks today!Nancy's Entry: It was a beautiful, sunny morning today. We got up early and drove a few miles into Palo Alto, home to many of the silicon valley geniuses such as Steve Jobs. We drove past the beautiful Stanford University campus and had breakfast at a diner catering to the university crowd. Then we walked through downtown Palo Alto and visited the Apple store. On the way back we stopped at Peet's coffee rather than Starbucks, and I got a raspberry mocha coffee. Peets is our favorite brand of coffee; we order it from Seattle and make their Arabian Mocha Java almost every morning at home, so it was fun to be able to visit their cafe instead of Starbucks!
After we were done in Palo Alto, we drove to Calistoga and visited the Chateau Montelena winery, which the movie "Bottle Shock" was about. That is a favorite movie of ours, and one we often give as a gift with a bottle of their wine. It was great fun to see the winery and sample their estate wines. After that we drove to Stag's Leap Cellars in Napa Valley. This is one of Kevin's favorite brands of wine, and we
The Chateau
The Chateau Montelena also did a tasting of their estate wines and bought a souvenir bottle. When we were done, we made the long drive back to Jenner. We stopped in Bodega Bay, the town next to Jenner, to have dinner at a local seafood restaurant. Then we headed back to our house on the coast, where we packed up and got ready for our morning departure to Malibu.
Kevin's Entry: Day 6 -- Some catching up to do…
The day got off to a great easy start in Silicon Valley as we headed back to vacation and up to wine country for some tours. First we needed breakfast and I suggested we head into Palo Alto by the college and eat at one of the little diners by the Apple Store. After some great food we stopped by Peet’s Coffee & Tea for something different to my typical Starbucks fix. I make Peet’s Mocha coffee at home but have never been to one of their retail stores. We also stopped by a pharmacy to get me some stuff for a spider bite I got a couple of nights before on the back of my neck that had now become grape
Chateau Montelena
The grounds are well manicured, with a beautiful swan in their lake size and only itched when I breathed. So it was driving me nuts.
Retracing our route down, we crossed out of San Francisco and ended up in the heart of Napa and Sonoma. The drive up the St Helena Hwy was great to see with lots of commercial wineries along the way and plenty of small ones you recognize. See the acres and acres of grape vines was amazing.
We were headed to Chateau Montelena—the place made famous in recent years by the movie Bottle Shock. The drive into Calistoga is fun and the weather was clear and hot. We pulled into their estate a little after lunch and settled in for some tastings and to hear about history of the place. The grounds are very nice and include a Japanese pond with a swan that had Bentley completely freaked out—yes, it was bigger than him. The wine was tasty and the real story of their wines was even better. The owner bought the land to grow grapes to make Cabernet but that takes a few years and he needed something bring in some money immediately so he bought some Chardonnay grapes from another grower locally and don’t you
The Boardroom
The boardroom at Chateau Montelena know, that’s what he won with in Paris in ’73 that put California wines on the map. Something that isn’t clear in the movie was the winner for the red that year was Stag’s Leap—my favorite vineyard. So that’s where we headed next. They have a very nice facility and I learned a great deal and sampled some great wines and bought some to take home as well. Once again good stories about the history of the place and about the founder, a good Chicago guy. It was very surprising how just a little distance affects the soil and taste of the wine from one part of their vineyard to another.
We headed back to the coast for our last night in the cliffs of Jenner.
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