Hipster Heaven: Champagne and Airstreams

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I'm not gonna lie. I used to think Korbel was a basic champagne everyone buys for celebrations. Particularly brides like myself who were too busy studying in nursing school to actually develop any drinking and partying habits that might one day lead to me knowing anything about wine in my late 20s when I actually got married. I picked a champagne at random, and I'm pretty sure it was Korbel. So when hubby wanted to stop at Korbel for our birthday weekend I was slightly baffled but went with it. Turns out the grounds are lovely, the brick buildings are beautiful, the customer service spot-on and there's even a garden that's open late spring and summer (we missed it by a week). We started off by checking in where the free tours start. We had 30min to kill and the volunteer at the desk told us our game plan SHOULD be: go do some wine tasting FOR FREE, then come back to do the FREE tour and get a second round of FREE wine tasting as part of the tour. Our wonderful informative bartender who was super chatty behind the bar was a bit shy and intimidated when it came to do our tour with a group of people. Different type of performance, I get it- I actually found it endearing. Because when she was pouring us wine again on the outside bar at the end of the tour, she was back in her comfort zone talking up a storm and laughing with everyone. My favorite was the Korbel Rouge- super amazing smoky taste to it. The history of the Korbel family is actually pretty interesting- escaping prison in Prague with the help of his mom, taking the long route to California to buy up land, all the many industrious uses of said land and finally starting the champagne making business. Side note: Chris and I realized where the term Stumptown came from. All these giant tree stumps no one knew how to get out of the ground because they're so ginormous. The Korbels were just like... film a war movie on our property and blow 'em up! Yeah, we bought two bottles of champagne.

After that, we headed down the road to AutoCamp to check in. Chris' current fantasy is owning a refurbished Airstream to take camping. Considering we a have a mortgage and preschool tuition and a terrible travel habit, this isn't happening anytime soon. So I mentioned this place called Autocamp that kept popping up on my facebook feed and here we are for his birthday. It's a relatively small compact property full of Airstreams, canvas tents and I believe one bungalow(?). Each Airstream has it's own little outdoor patio with a table, chairs and fire pit. You can buy s'mores kits, wine and snacks in the clubhouse, which also has it's own indoor and outdoor fire pits and board games. While kids and pets aren't forbidden, I definitely got the vibe on their website and in their guest instruction booklet that they weren't particularly encouraged either. We were lucky enough to figure out childcare with my family for Arya so we could have a weekend together as a couple. Turns out there were children running around, and they honestly didn't bother me a bit. The family next to us sheepishly said they were moving their group gathering down a trailer so they would be quieter. And then another mom pops her head out two trailers down and calls out they have extra wine if we needed it, HAHAHA, like a peace offering! Again, I know I can outlast a toddler's bedtime and there's wine in any case so I'm all good. Chris, ofcourse, fell in love with our Airstream. It's very clean, compact and full of amenities and utensils.

Once we were done exploring the grounds, we decided to head back to town to grab dinner. Not that I was was starving. We ate a good sized lunch at boon eat + drink. We really wanted to try Seaside Metal and Oyster Bar, too, though. Alot of the restaurants were only open for dinner so we had to be strategic with what we ate and when. Just like lunch, the food here was phenomenal. Absolutely my favorite meal in Guerneville. We started with the bisque and a side of squash. Then a round of painted lady oysters and the BEST mussels I have had in my entire life, no exaggeration. They were some magical combination of jalapeno and herbs. The artic char with horseradish creme fraiche, wasabi tobiko and dill was probably my favorite out of everything but the grilled octopus was also on point so I really can't pick. Trust me. All amazing. And then we had a pot of chocolate mousse (i think) for dessert.

Thoroughly stuffed at this point, we walked down the street back towards our car and passed, for the third time, the intriguing looking bank building turned pie and ice cream shop. So we wandered inside and Chris bought two pieces of pie we would never have room for. I did legit try a few bites of my Apple and Green Chili pie and it was a surprisingly awesome new take on apple pie.

Back at AutoCamp I changed out of my sundress and into full on hipster regalia, complete with knitted beanie and Rainbow sandals with socks. Time to get cozy! We'd heard the clubhouse can get noisy and crowded but it turned out only one other couple was making use of it. We brought one of our bottles of wine, glasses and a bottle opener and spent the next couple hours playing Scrabble and Chess. Oddly enough, he barely beat me at Scrabble and he didn't know what hit him both times I Check Mated him. By then it was dark, so we built our private campfire (this part took awhile- the provided log would be my only complaint for AutoCamp), roasted s'mores and enjoyed the fire til we crawled into bed, watching Big Bang Theory.

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Photos

boon eat + drink
Hella good shishito peppers and a beet salad

boon eat + drink
Meatball Special and Mac n Cheese

First Round of Wine Tasting
The Rouge was my favorite!

Old Tower
Replica of the one Korbel escaped from in Prague

Outdoor Wine Tasting Bar
Love it

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Champagne and more champagne please
Tasting your way through California... nothing better.