Vacation Day 5 - Big Sur to Monterey Jazz Festival

Big Sur, California, is among my favorite places. My affection began in the 1960s, when I first saw Big Sur's beauty in the Vincente Minnelli film "The Sandpiper," starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Soon after seeing the film, I made my way up the coast from Los Angeles. Not a great film, but it got me there, and I've returned many times over the past 40 years.

There are an amazing number of beautiful spots in the Big Sur area, not the least of which is the deck of the Sierra Mar Restaurant, at the Post Ranch Inn. The restaurant is 1200 feet above the blue Pacific and has a "see forever" view.


Sierra Mar Restaurant




My favorite table on the deck

Liis and I had a great lunch, as always, at Sierra Mar and I said hello to a number of people that I've gotten to know over the years, including my usual bartender, Vanessa.

After lunch, we went into Monterey and nearly visited the renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium, but decided that walking around was the thing to do on a sunny, warm late summer afternoon.



Later, we drove to Pacific Grove and walked and sat at Asilomar State Beach.







By then, it was approaching 5:00 p.m., and time to make our way to the fairgrounds for tonight's Monterey Jazz Festival performances. Once on the fairgrounds, we walked around, checked out some of the acts at the outdoor venues and made some selections from the food and beverage court, before settling into our two main performances for this evening.




Robert Glasper Trio


Richard Bona

I first heard of the 27-year old piano phenom Robert Glasper about a year ago, but this was the first time I had a chance to see him live and he's sensational.

I've seen the amazing Richard Bona a few times in the past. Within his genre, his bass playing is at the top of his peer group AND he's described as "having the voice of an angel." If you've never seen him, go.

The good news is that unlike last year we decided to stay in Big Sur, instead of Carmel. The bad news is that we had to drive from Monterey to Big Sur, late at night, through the high and winding cliffs of Highway 1. But there was no fog and with my high beams on we made it comfortably and safely. I've made this drive many times in the dark, but never saw anywhere near as many deer as tonight.

Vacation Day 4 - Tiburon/Sausalito/Big Sur

We woke up, packed up and left our friends Kenneth and Abby in Petaluma and headed south: first stop Tiburon.

"Keep in touch" is something I do. Leonard Sellers and I were in the same class in graduate school in Communication Research at Stanford University, in the early 1970s. When I took a position with Stratify (formerly PurpleYogi), a Silicon Valley startup, in 2000-2001, I looked Leonard up. I found him in the top house on the left in Sausalito, sharing his life with a beautiful woman named Connie. Leonard served as a professor at San Francisco State University, retired, and had success since then as an entrepreneur. He continues to challenge himself. I like that.


Leonard & Connie, 2001

Leonard and Connie are in the punch-list stage of building a new home in Tiburon. Among other features, their home has a view.



Liis has heard stories from the old days about Leonard, but this is the first time she met him.


Leonard & Liis

When we visited, Connie was working, so we didn't see her, on this trip.


Beautiful downtown Tiburon

Leonard took us to lunch at Sam's Anchor Cafe, (established in 1920) in Tiburon.

We left Tiburon bound and determined to highball it down the highway to Big Sur before sunset. But we could not resist a stop in Sausalito, for a Starbucks for Liis, a maple-nut scone for me and a photograph of the beautiful city by the bay.



We arrived in Big Sur, in the late afternoon, and checked into the Glen Oaks Motel. It's been my preferred accommodation in Big Sur for years, because it's simple, rustic, clean and inexpensive. To my surprise, they've increased their prices, so I think this will be our last stay there. It's still very reasonable, for the area, but the new prices are in the same range as the nearby Ripplewood Resort and the Big Sur River Inn, both with additional features. Next year, we'll try one of those.

After checking into our motel, we went directly to the bar at the Sierra Mar Restaurant at the Big Sur's Post Ranch Inn, arriving before dark.



Our bartender at Sierra Mar, Alicia, is a new employee. She is studying to be a sommelier, so she and Liis had a lively discussion about wines and sommelier training.

After our drink, we proceeded to the delightful Big Sur Bakery, one of our favorite restaurants in Big Sur, for dinner.

Vacation Day 3 - Napa & Sonoma

We packed up and left the Cuvaison Guest House. Our thanks to the Schmidheiny family, owners of the winery, the entire Cuvaison staff, and hospitality rep Kim Peters, our contact, for their kindness and consideration.

We proceeded to the Cuvaison tasting room in Carneros, which last year we enjoyed in a different way, as it then served as the Cuvaison Guest Apartment.

Nicely repurposed as a tasting room, this beautiful facility is in Cuvaison's Carneros vineyard.



We met our friend Kenneth Pledger at the Boonfly Cafe, part of the Carneros Inn, for lunch. I met Kenneth in Seattle about ten years ago. Kenneth now works at Francis Ford Coppola Presents, in Napa. He married Abby in 2003 and they relocated to the San Franciso Bay area a couple of years ago. I attended their wedding in Point Reyes, California.




Boonfly Cafe

Fortified by lunch (a lesson learned from sipping all yesterday on an empty stomach), we departed the Napa Valley and drove to Sonoma County. We started our Sonoma tasting with quality sparkling wines at the Gloria Ferrar Winery.



We drove to Cline Cellars, where we found an engaging facility, good wine and a sense of humor.







Next was the Shug Winery to taste some of their highly-rated whites and reds.





We started up I-5 heading for the north end of Sonoma, but the traffic changed our plans, and we decided to make our next to the last wine tasting stop at Chateau Saint Jean.





We closed out the wine tasting portion of our vacation at Kendall-Jackson.





Wine tasting completed, we headed to Petaluma, for dinner and the guest room at Kenneth and Abby's home.

Vacation Day 2 - Napa Valley

Serious wine tasting began today and most of the wineries we visited are included in this posting. Liis works at O'Doul's Bar and Restaurant, part of the Listel Hotel, in Vancouver, BC, and we agreed to focus our tasting this trip on wines featured on the O'Doul's wine list, either currently or in the past.

We started at the Andretti Winery (as in Mario Andretti, the great race car driver), where we found beautiful grounds and excellent wine.











We visited the Vine Cliff Winery, enjoyed a number of good wines, and had a lively conversation with a couple of staff people in the tasting room, one of whom had spent time in Vancouver.





Next up was the Miner Family Vineyards, where we sampled fine wines and took a tour of the production facilities.





We met an engaging young couple, students from California State University, Chico, at the Miner Family Vineyard.



A short stop at Chateau Potelle Winery was a minor disappointment for Liis, as they had sold out of the superb botrytis-affected Blue Moon dessert wine we purchased last year. Chateau Potelle produces an impressive number of highly rated wines.





We then made our way to the city of Napa and made a brief stop at Angele Restaurant, overlooking the Napa River.



That evening, since we had neither booked months in advance, nor budgeted $210 each (service included) for dinner, we did not eat at the French Laundry Restaurant, in Yountville. But we did stop by to check it out, possibly for next year. If the food is as good as space, my guess is that it will be a good experience.

Instead, we selected Bouchon - a nearby bistro operated by the French Laundry - for tonight's dinner. Unfortunately, this restaurant's beautiful decor and lively environment was not matched by the quality of the performance from the kitchen. The chef must have been distracted while preparing my poulet roti, because it was much too salty. Liis' dinner was fine, so we may try this restaurant again, and we won't steer our friends away from Bouchon. But unless you have a salt deficiency, we recommend that you let your server know about this problem, in advance.

Vacation Day 1 - Napa Valley

My girlfriend, Liis, and I recently took our annual late summer week-long trip to the Northern California wine country and the Monterey Jazz Festival. On Monday, September 11, we flew from Seattle to San Jose, then rented a car and drove to the Napa Valley.

Our first stop was Domaine Carneros to taste sparkling wines and share a well-appointed cheese platter.











In addition to singing jazz and blues, Liis is a sommelier, which allowed us (for the second straight year) to spend two nights in the Cuvaison winery guest house, free of charge. It's a beautiful home, at the edge of a vineyard.











That evening, we had an excellent dinner at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, in St. Helena, which we'd discovered in a New York Times article earlier in the summer. Owner and chef Cindy Pawlcyn - James Beard award winning cookbook author - is also responsible for Mustards Grill, in Napa, where we had another good meal in 2005.