Sunday morning saw the skies open with a Vancouver-like deluge, a torrent that wouldn’t stop for the balance of our trip. We decided to head over the hills into Sonoma. It was a half hour journey over a ridiculously scenic road over the hills that made you curse the fact it wasn’t taking place in a small nimble two seater sports car. We had a quick breakfast in Santa Rosa and then continued west to The Russian River Valley, an appellation we’ve always enjoyed for it’s less commercial more pastoral and artisnal feel compared to Napa.
Had the misfortune of grabbing the worst map in cartographic history from our hotel lobby to use as our guide that day. Spent most of the time traversing Sonoma backroads looking for our destination, not that big a deal as we were basically driving aimlessly anyway. Finally found West Side Road stopped in at Hop Kiln for reasons unknown, they’ve never made particularly great wine in my opinion. They still don’t under new ownership. Beautiful old building however.
We wound our way north, the most notable stop was at Armida Winery, a label I’d never heard of. Horrible, horrible wines. But that’s not the notable part, it’s the only winery I’ve ever been that has chosen to forgo the faux-Italianate so popular in wine country theme and instead go with a decorating scheme straight out of a teenaged goths bedroom. Their flagship wine is called PoiZin, and they chose to leave a ton of residual sugar in it. I guess someone needs to service the oenophile black nail polish crowd.
We headed back to Napa as my wife had booked us a couples mud bath at the spa. Being pampered isn’t one of my big things, and frankly I was in Napa to toxify, not de-toxify, so I wasn’t that excited about the healing properties of the mineral mud. I’m not sure how lying around in a giant ceramic smoking hot mud puddle is supposed to be pleasant, but apparently some people like it. I like golf, so I guess I should cut some slack to other pointless pastimes. Needed to stop at Busters BBQ to bolster my flagging meat and booze levels after all the cleansing. 
Grilled tri-tip was on the menu that day. So it wasn’t real barbeque but it was cooked over a live fire of real wood. Meat was great, I’ve never understood why some BBQ places feel the need to ramp up the sweetness in the sides to dessert-like levels however.
To be continued…
~KT
