Sonoma County

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Our Healdsburg Home

July 13, 2010 in Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 21 comments

I’m back! Hopefully over the last few days, you have enjoyed the great guest posts! Thanks so much to all of the guest posters for sharing something delicious with us!

Our long weekend in wine country was a perfect whirlwind of relaxation, wonderful people, and great food and wine. I took SO many pictures, and I have decided I will spread my wine country posts out over a few weeks mixed in with other recipes, restaurant reviews, and regular old bloggy stuff (including a very sweet giveaway that I will kick off later today). That way, I won’t bore any of you not interested in the wineries with day after day of wine, and I can give each winery the full write-up it deserves.

Any good holiday begins with beautiful accommodations, and Bella Villa Messina in Healdsburg, CA was hospitality in every sense of the word. After a late Jet Blue flight from Boston to Oakland, we spent a short night in the Holiday Inn Express at Oakland Airport. I highly recommend this hotel if you are ever in need of a quiet, clean place to stay in Oakland. From there, and very early Friday morning, we headed straight for my current favorite place on earth, the Dry Creek Valley. After a few winery visits, we found our home away from home at the top of a hill overlooking the valley.

As you can see, the property is simply stunning, and the views spectacular whether with a fiery setting sun or a foggy Northern California morning. Our room was comfortable and spacious, though I somehow missed taking any shots! It had a fluffy, comfy bed, a great view, and even an air purifier and fan! As someone who can not sleep without constant noise, I appreciated this little detail!

Our incredibly sweet and charming hosts, Harold and Jerry, offered a cocktail hour each evening. Full of delicious little bites like olives, cheese, nuts, and fresh bread, cocktail hour gave us the chance to meet other guests and to further take in the views. We enjoyed the time in their art-filled dining area with their 3 adorable dogs, Bernice, Brindle, and Basel.

Oh yes, and their pair of llamas. . .

I thought I may have just been tired when, on our first morning at breakfast, I saw a black and white llama head floating on by. But no, there they were!

Speaking of breakfast, our stay included a full gourmet meal every morning. Each day was different and completely homemade or locally grown from the bread. . .

. . . to the fruit

. . . to the spinach frittata and bacon.

This bed and breakfast is simply an elegant and comfortable place to spend your wine country visit. It is located in my favorite valley but is close to Napa Valley as well; we easily spent a day there as it’s only about an hour’s drive. I have so many more stories to tell but for now must get back to work. I hope you all had nice weekends, and I am looking forward to catching up on blog reading. Tonight, I am headed to the first Mystery Meet Boston dinner, and I will hopefully see some of you there!

What kinds of details make a vacation special for you?

Technorati Tags: Healdsburg,wine country,Sonoma,Bella Villa Messina,food,wine,accommodations,hotel,travel

Tags: Healdsburg, hotels, inns, Sonoma, Sonoma County, Travel, travel to wine country, where to stay in wine country, wine, wine country

John Ash & Co.

March 24, 2010 in Food, Restaurants, Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 12 comments

Following our visit to Rodney Strong, checking into Vintners Inn, and walking around the vineyard, we decided to eat on the hotel property at John Ash & Co. Luckily, although it was last minute, they were able to seat us at a table overlooking the vineyard.

The welcome we received from the restaurant staff was second to none, and the Food and Beverage Manager really made us feel right at home.

I wanted just about everything on the menu which featured many fresh, local ingredients, and variety of flavors and styles of cuisine.

With the hot day that was in it and the celebratory mood of the weekend, I started with a glass of sparkling wine from the Roederer Estate in the Anderson Valley.

We were brought cornbread with a creamy, delicious butter. The cornbread had jalapenos in it! Oh my yum. I need to make jalapeno cornbread soon.

The amuse bouche was a bit of plump, tender crab, topped with whipped avocado.

We also started with Hog Island oysters with three different sauces, a lemon granita, a “hogwash” mignonette, and cocktail sauce. Its so interesting to note the differences in appearance and flavor between East and West coast oysters. I like them all!

For our main meal, we stuck with a selection of appetizers. They were all light, but together made a healthy, filling meal. First there was the Spicy Salmon Sushi Roll with sriracha, ginger, wasabi, and soy sauce.

Then the Roasted Red & Yellow Beet Salad with fennel, avocado, red wine vinaigrette and Bohemian Creamery capriago cheese.

We finished with “Petaluma Poultry Rocky” Chicken Lettuce Wraps with green onions, peanuts, cilantro, and Asian dipping sauce.

We were too full for dessert at the restaurant, so we took a piece of Guinness chocolate cake to go and ate it in the big comfy bed. I am SO glad that we decided to stay on the hotel property for dinner. We were on East coast time and tired, plus the food and service turned out to be exactly what we wanted.

In fact, we liked John Ash & Co. so much that we also finished off my birthday there. More on all of the birthday eating and wine tasting later, but since we are on the subject of John Ash & Co., we did go there for a drink in the lounge at the end of my birthday.

I had the “Tiny Bubbles” flight.

Roederer Estate Brut N.V., Mumm Napa Brut Prestige N.V., and Nicholas Feuillate Brut N.V.

I do love my bubbly! 😉

It was pretty amazing to have such a delicious restaurant on site and within about 3 minutes’ walking distance from our hotel room. It made it very easy for us to enjoy some time out without having to get in the car. Perfect!

John Ash & Co. is another great reason to stay at Vintner’s Inn.

In case you are new to the blog or haven’t checked it out, my ALLY Foundation raffle is extended, but I need to finish my fundraising very soon. I am half way there, and I would LOVE to make my $3000 minimum before April 1. Every little bit counts, and the prizes are pretty great!

http://firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally

Tags: Dining out, Food, hotel, hotels, oysters, restaurant, Sonoma, Sonoma County, sparkling wine, Travel, where to stay in wine country, wine

Dry Creek Valley

November 14, 2009 in Food, Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 9 comments

Happy weekend! I only had three days of work this week, but I was certainly thankful for the work week to end. Going back to work after an amazing time at the Foodbuzz Festival and in wine country was very difficult. I do however, have a new work philosophy. At the end of the day, when I leave work I am just letting it go, not even making the time to talk about the work part of my day. So far this has worked well and has helped me to avoid reliving the frustration that talking about work brings. When I last left off on our wine country journey, we were leaving Hook & Ladder after a tasting of reds, including a great Zinfandel that we purchased to ship home. We were going to head straight to Yountville to check into our hotel, but we had some time and decided to drove a bit past Healdsburg. Venturing off of 101, we found ourselves on a bumpy side road with a narrow old railway bridge. The scenery, as it was everywhere in California, was a sight to behold. Everyone says that Fall in New England is beautiful, and it is, but this was just such a different perspective on the season. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I can definitely see myself living there.

We were about to turn around to head back to the main highway when I saw a sign for Bella Vineyards and Wine Caves, a winery recommended to me on Twitter by Sonoma Wine Guy. As useless as Twitter sometimes seems, it was helpful in this case! Pulling up to Bella reveals their wine caves which include the tasting room and events space.

The wine tanks are also visible to visitors.

Taking photos inside the cave was difficult, but it was a cozy, warmly lit place, and I was excited to try their Zinfandels and other offerings.

Their wine glasses had a cute tractor, the same one parked out in front of the cave, etched on the glass. 🙂 Zinfandels definitely won again. We tried and enjoyed both their 2007 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel and their 2007 Big River Ranch Zinfandel. The standout was the Big River Ranch, though we liked them both. This is a big, tannin-y wine with a deep opaque red color and a burst of juicy berries on the palate. Yum. Tasting in the caves was a lot of fun. Bella offers not only tours and private tastings in their caves, but they also have a jeep tour that takes you up to Lily Hill, where the grapes for the Dry Creek zin are grown. I didn’t contact them in time to book any of the tours, but the next time we go to Sonoma I will definitely make sure to book in advance. Their website offers information on the tours so if you will be in the area, check them out! After leaving Bella, we were definitely heading back to the highway to get lunch and find our hotel for the night. But then we saw the sign for barrel tastings at Zichichi Family Vineyard and literally backed up and into their parking lot. Neither one of us had done a barrel tasting and really wanted to give it a whirl.

Our tasting was delayed slightly when I looked out on to the covered back deck of the tasting room and saw this, my new, nine week old Swiss mountain dog puppy pal:

Obviously I had to go out and play.

It was love at first sight. And love at first sip once I went inside!
The 2008 Old Vine Zinfandel from the barrel was incredible. It offers the perfect amount of the big, jammy flavor characteristic of Zinfandels. It is not even being bottled until January, and we will receive our shipment in March, just in time for my birthday, hopefully. I can not wait to see what a couple of months of aging in the barrel will do to the flavor of this young wine. Something to look forward to for sure! At this point we were more than ravenous. A quick drive over to Geyserville brought us right in front of Diavola Pizzeria. After a good amount of water and some thin, chewy, cheesy breadsticks, we were served our lunches. For me, the wood oven roasted hearts of romaine with shrimp and Caesar dressing and for my hubs, a thick BLT panini teeming with thick, salty, smoky bacon and, red pepper mayo, lettuce, and ripe tomatoes. I will admit to sneaking a few bites of this sandwich, and I can understand why it was his favorite meal of the entire trip. It was a perfectly made sandwich, complete with chewy focaccia bread. My lunch was great too with perfectly cooked shrimp, and a creamy parmesan laden dressing over slightly grilled lettuce. Just what we needed to finish our journey to Yountville.

Next up, Yountville, Domaine Chandon, dinner at Bouchon, and more. For now I am off to go running with a group of Boston bloggers, then to walk some of my favorite dog friends at the shelter. They have been there for so long 🙁 I am not sure what the rest of the weekend will bring, but I know I will be blogging! Have a GREAT day my friends!