The Best Wine & Food Tour Ever: The Beginning

by Frank Mangio
Three months before, the idea of a journey to the ultimate wine country, some Sonoma and mostly Napa Valley, came into the planning stage.

It was gong to be harvest time, a difficult time at best to get the attention of wine makers and managers of wineries, but critical to what I wanted:  access to the truth about this year’s harvest and what we could expect from 2015. The millions of bottles from the over 500 wineries, will start coming  to  market  next year.

In mid September I flew to the lovely little “Snoopy” airport, the Charles Schulz, just above Santa Rosa , an hour twenty flight from San Diego . A rental without wait quickly got me to the pristine village of Sonoma. After a Pinot Noir tasting at the cottage of Walt Wines in the Plaza that I’ll bring up in another issue, my destination in Sonoma was  the critically acclaimed  wine/food center of excellence, Carneros Bistro.

Executive Chef Joshua Murray, at the
Carneros Bistro with columnist Frank Mangio

This beautifully designed restaurant is centrally located in the Lodge at Sonoma , with hotel, restaurant, wine bar, spa and shops.  It offers many wine choices with reasonable pricing, collected by Sommelier  Joshua Betts who enjoys finding little-known but excellent wines like the Riesling from S.A.Prumm, in the Mosel area of Germany.  Equally lovely was the presentation of a bottle of Almus, a single vineyard cabernet from the Napa Valley Pritchard Hill district. It was a 2008 that had significant seasoning to soften tannins and add complexity.

Carneros Bistro is gem of a dining room.  It has a vast open kitchen and it was a delight to watch Executive Chef Joshua Murray mastermind the many meals being created with his team to present to an upbeat room.  I ordered from the menu, but Murray kept bringing us his personal specialty samplers, some of which I had not been familiar with.  After some reservation on my part, he explained the personal ingredients he had infused with such dishes as:  Wood Grilled Octopus, Sonoma Foie Gras and BBQ Pork Belly.  All were firsts for me and after sampling, I felt good making the great leap forward to exotic dining. Menu items favored were:  Farmers Market Salad with luscious figs, Wood grilled Ora King Salmon from Australia and Grilled Niman Ranch Steak with roasted fingerling potatoes, broccolini, cauliflower puree and cabernet syrup. Chef Joshua came from another favorite resort of mine, the Marriott Desert Springs in Palm Desert and insists on a farm to table style of menu.

The Renaissance Lodge at Sonoma Resort  & Spa is a member of the Marriott Group. To discover more, go to Marriott.com/sfols.

On to Napa Valley
On day two, all I could hear about was the wildfire that toasted a town in Lake County just north of the Napa Valley line and was taking out everything in front of it. Traffic was stopped at Calistoga, Napa Valley ’s northernmost town.

Bill Miller, Director of Wine Sales at Hill Family Estate in Napa Valley ,
expresses the Hill philosophy that ” if you want to dream in color, drink wine.”

I arrived after a 45 minute drive from Sonoma, across the Carneros district and up to Yountville, arriving at Hill Family Estate where I met the expressive Bill Miller, who guided me through the family garden that services fresh ingredients to most of the restaurants in the area.  Earlier in Hill’s history the family provided similar service for many wineries in Napa Valley.  They grew grapes from over a thousand acres, and sold them to some of the most prestigious wineries. Now, only the best are reserved for Hill Family Estate.  Look them up at hillfamilyestate.com.

On Wednesday, day three, the rains came and subdued the renegade fire; another miracle from the place of miracles, Napa Valley .

Part 2 of the Best Wine & Food Tour Ever will be seen in next week’s column.

Wine Bytes
Vittorio’s in Carmel Valley has a Tuscany Tour of wine and food Thurs. Oct. 29th starting at 6pm.  $49.50 ea.  RSVP at 858-538-5884.

Il Fornaio Coronado presents a Mondavi Wine Dinner Thurs. Oct. 29th at 6pm.  $65. per guest.  Reservations at 619-437-4911.

Justine Vineyards and Winery from Paso Robles will host a four course dinner with their wine Fri. Oct. 30th at 7:30pm in the underground wine cave at Pala Casino Spa & Resort.  $68. pp. Call 1-877-946-7252. Ask to “book the wine dinner on Oct. 30.”