Sunday 25th September

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Today was the second of our three included excursions; a day of wine tasting in the Sonoma Valley vineyards. It was a late start as the bus didn't pick us up until 10.00am. Our driver and guide for the day was Trevor and he told us many interesting facts about wine making in California. The first winery we visited was Pelligrini, where we sat in their garden area under shade, as it was already getting very hot, sipping three different wines in very large wine glasses. We were then taken indoors for a short but informative talk and look around the wine-making machinery and casks. This vineyard only kept a small portion of its grapes in order to produce a high quality product, the rest being sold off to nearby wineries for them to blend into cheaper wines. Whilst sat in the garden after the tour we saw a humming bird. We then travelled go our second winery, Kendal-Jackson, which was a much bigger and commercial affair. Here we were able to pick and sample the many different varieties of grape, that were labelled with the type of wine they produced. This was very interesting as the grapes were very different to taste and this was something we had never done before when we toured the vineyards in Bordeaux. After several more glasses of wine tasting we were all ravenous and luckily the next stop was for lunch. As we approached Healdsburg, we could see plumes of smoke in the distance - yet another new Californian's forest fire.

Healdsburg was a very charming town with a tree-lined historic town square and many eateries catering for all tastes, not to mention plenty of wine tasting rooms. We definitely didn't need any of the later, but we did enjoy a lunch of a large American sandwich, made to go!!! By now the smoke was blocking out the sun and you could smell and taste it.

We carried on to our final wine tasting at the Truett-Hurst winery. This winery was situated near a creek and it was very pleasant to wander down to and cool off, after yet more wine tasting of course!! On our way back we called at Francis Ford Coppola not to taste the wine, but to see the display of artefacts from his many films.

We finally made it back to the campsite at about 6pm after a tiring but interesting day. Tonight we have had a meeting around a fire burning in one of the firepits adjacent tour pitches. This was to discuss our routes both in and out of San Francisco, our next stop.

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