DAY 4: Thursday 6 September - Santa Rosa to Fort Bragg, California
It was a fairly leisurely 8.15am bags, 9.15 bus day and yet we still had to dash to get to the bus on time. Oops! I was so busy on Twitter I didn't notice the time. Sue me.
Our first stop of the morning was at Historic Railroad Square in Santa Rosa. It's only about ten minutes from our hotel so didn't take us long to get there.
Several of the buildings on the square survived the 1906 earthquake so are pretty old (in American terms) and represented the railroad station, hotel and offices. It wasn't the most exciting stop of the tour though. The station building is now an information stop and contains a small model railway as well as having a desk setup with a telegraph.
As Peanuts cartoon creator Charles M Schulz lived in Santa Rosa for about twenty years, there are several statues around town of his Peanuts characters. I took some photos with them, as there wasn't much else to do - just a Visitor Center and coffee shop.
Once it was 10am, the antique and thrift stores opened so we had a poke about in there for twenty minutes. They had a 1975 Snoopy phone - assistant Di had always wanted one as a child, and I would have bought it for her, but they wanted $200 for it. I don't like her that much! Nor anyone, for that matter! Rip off!
Once our time was up, we headed back to the bus. Apparently they used to stop at the Charles M Schulz museum, but it doesn't open till 11am and that's too late for the schedule. Shame, I would've liked to have seen it, but hey, you can't have everything.
Once on the bus we headed for the Korbel Winery for our tour and wine-tasting. We were met by our guide Bob Colbrook. Before heading inside, he told us a little about the history of the winery and the Korbel Brothers who founded it. There are some pretty big redwood trees in the grounds. They think this one is over 150 years old.
Inside, they had examples of the different size bottles (I won't bore you).
The start of the tour was in a pretty large room where they hold events (below left). They have some artefacts in the building that used to be the manufacturing plant. That is now kept as a historical area after the winery outgrew it in the 1950s. Then they showed us a short movie and our guide Bob appeared in the film!
We took a look at some barrels - they mostly use the smaller barrels these days, but they used to use these huge old ones. Bob said they still don't leak, even today, and they are pretty old!
Bob explained how grape juice, sugar, water and yeast is mixed in the bottle and they are laid down for two to five years. Once aged, the bottles are riddled - placed on special racks (pupitres) which hold the bottles, cap down at 45 degrees. The bottles are slightly shaken and rotated to the right, then the left, with the angle gradually increased. Eventually the bottle is straight down with settlement of dead yeast at the neck of the bottle for removal. This is done by freeing the bottle neck so that, when they open the bottle, the pressure causes the plug to pop out.
They top it up with wine, sugar and sometimes flavourings before blocking the bottle with a cork. This has to be forced in as it is bigger than the hole into which it is pushed. Then, to hold the cork in place, a foil cover is used and a metal "cage" is twisted tight around it, using six half turns. At least, it must be six half turns if it is to be a champagne bottle. This is a rule!
Since the 1800s this has all been mechanised, significantly in the 1950s when Adolf Heck bought the plant from the Korbel family. He increased production from 3,000 bottles a year to 150,000 bottles a year so a huge amount of automation was introduced at all stages.
At the end of the tour, Bob showed us a display bottle that is the world's largest champagne bottle, which holds 120 litres of champagne. They have two of these bottles, this one stays here - the other goes on tour. They also produced the official champagne for the Millenium, in the US, and sold some 2000 bottles for $2000 - these are now selling for $4200! Darn, I should've bought one! Trouble is, I'd have drunk it by now!
Bob took us into the tasting area next. We got to taste four different types of Korbel Champagne and, for someone who doesn't generally like champagne, all of them were not bad! Some were better than others, but you'd expect that. And yes, of course, by better, I mean I liked some more than others. It's all subjective.
The first was Korbel Natural, a crisp, dry wine. This has been served at every Presidential inaugural event since Ronald Reagan. I liked this one. Second we did Korbel Blanc de Noirs, which blends black and white grapes. It was fizzier than the first and supposedly has a hint of cherry but I couldn't taste it. Their website says raspberry and strawberry, so that could explain it. Might be me though. Korbel Sec was our third taste. I think this is the one Bob said they sell a lot of at weddings. It has a more peachy flavour that appeals to brides to be and their mothers apparently! The Korbel Sweet Rose was another favourite of mine. It's a little pink in colour and has hints of strawberry. It has a ten percent sugar content and you can certainly tell. I could drink this by the bucketful, though, given the opportunity!
By the time we were done, we seemed to have managed to polish off a few bottles! We then had an hour left to hit the gift shop and have lunch. We bought a bottle of red champagne (limited run and on sale!) to take home (or drink before we left!) but not much else. They had some glassware, including Korbel champagne flutes, but as they were made in Germany it didn't make much sense to buy any! They had some plastic ones too, but we didn't really need them. The t-shirts were kinda dull too, and definitely not Ted-size.
As we still had 45 minutes before the coach was leaving, we headed into the deli and, as well as buying some jalapeno and strawberry preserve to take home, we decided to get a deli sandwich. It was delicious! Paul decided to try the local Russian River ales, opting for the strongest they had, which was Pliny the Elder, an 8% double India Pale Ale with a pine and citrus aroma. Bearsonally, I fancied their Damnation, but Paul was paying.
After lunch, we got back on the bus for our coastal drive up Highway 101 to the town of Fort Bragg. It was very windy and a little scary in places - especially when a truck came hurtling around a very tight corner. Oh well, we survived. There are some beautiful sea views on this road, but, as usual, we were on the wrong side of the bus, though Randy had done his best, filling up all the seats on the ocean side of the bus so as many people as possible could check out the view.
At about two-thirty, we stopped in a line of traffic - they were doing some roadworks and the traffic was down to one way at a time. When it was our turn, we drove along the curvy roads but on one of them there was a very big truck at the side of the road, right on a bend. Driver David did his best to get past it, but not without injury to the bus. He had to pull over (fortunately, there was a safe place to do that) while he presumably went to discuss insurance. About ten minutes later we were back on the road. Different! A new experience for us!
Back underway we passed Fort Ross, but didn't have time to stop - looks interesting.
As we drove along, we passed a little place called Timber Cove which has a Peace Sculpture, Bufano's Obelisk (below left). We passed through Salt Point State Park - and more roadworks - before arriving at our rest stop at Gualala. There wasn't much there - a view of the Pacific Ocean and the Russian River, though unfortunately the sky had clouded over. They also had an ice cream shop so I got me a Dulce du Leche ice cream. It was so yummy, I forgot to take a photo of it! You'll just have to imagine... While we were off the bus we took a look at the damage done - mostly trim, so not the end of the world.
Just as we'd got going David pulled off the road for us to take a few shots of the coast. Sadly the sun was gone, but it was a nice viewpoint. There was talk of sea otters but we didn't see any. There were a lot of holes dug into the ground too, but I didn't see who (or what) dug them.
Our overnight stop was at the Travelodge in Fort Bragg. The room looked like it had been recently decorated but, with several paint runs on the door and walls that's unforgiveable to an expert like me. The television was the old big CRT type, but there were toiletries, two beds, a coffee maker and enough towels. They even had a sign offering bear essentials, which we hoped alluded to the Travelodge bear mascot and not that they were spelling-challenged. It amused me though. Overall, I just dropped them that one Ted, as it wasn't perfect.
We took a walk through the quiet town in search of dinner.
We were going to go to a pizza place (below left) that a guy at the hotel recommended for dinner but the place we found - if it was the right one - was full to the brim with people and very loud, with a couple more folks waiting. We decided to try elsewhere, heading back into town and passed the Skunk Train office (more about that tomorrow). We looked in an Italian place Randy had mentioned but it didn't appeal.
In the end we decided to go to the North Coast Microbrewery, which both Randy and the hotel guy had also recommended.
We checked the menu and there was something for vegetarian Di so we went in. There was a fifteen minute wait, or we could eat in the bar (same menu) if we could find a seat. It was pretty noisy and we weren't in a rush so we waited, taking a look around their gift shop. They had some big bottles of beer in there. While we were waiting another couple from our bus came in but, rather than wait, they headed into the bar. It wasn't long before our booth was ready and, as there was room for four, I sent Paul to go invite the others to join us. They were Linda and Steve from Solihull, of all places! That's not far from where I live! Small world.
As it was a microbrewery we thought we should taste some of their beers - they did a four-beer sampler (little 4oz glasses) for $5. They did a twelve-beer sampler as well, but we weren't sure we'd make it back to the hotel! It was kinda cool, because they had a piece of laminated paper with the twelve beer logos on, and placed each sampler on its own logo. We had a Scrimshaw which is a fresh-tasting 4.7% Pilsner which uses Munich malt and Hallertauer and Tettnang hops. The Pranqster is a Belgian-style Golden Ale with 7.6% ABV. It uses antique yeast strains for a fruity flavour with "a floral nose" (they tell me). Our third beer was the Brother Thelonious Belgian Style Abbey Ale which is a 9.3%ABV strong ale. Our final taster was Old Stock Ale. This one is 11.8% ABV, this one is designed to mellow with age. I didn't like the stronger ones much (which made for a happy Paul, as he got to drink almost all of it) and the Scrimshaw was a little weak-tasting, but I did like the Pranqster, even though it was a cloudy beer.
Paul and I shared a burger while Di had a plateful of leaves. Salad they call it (I wouldn't know). It was huge and, amazingly, she said it wasn't bad! We had a bottle of California wine with dinner, from Sonoma, and the overall bill, including tip came to $51. Bargain! An easy five-Tedder!
We ambled back to the hotel for the night. We'd missed Obama's live speech from the DNC but they kept replaying it over and over. It wasn't as good as Clinton's but I think he did okay. Hope so anyway. Soon it was bedtime.
