Santa Rosa

The rally ended on Wednesday morning, and we barreled up the coast to Santa Rosa to spend a couple of days with my brother Tony, aka "Stone" (I don't know why he's "Stone", don't ask) and his wife, Lorraine, aka "Lo." I was hoping we'd drive up along the coast, through San Francisco, and over the Golden Gate Bridge so I could stop and walk in Muir Woods, one of my favorite places on earth. Alas, Steve wanted nothing to do with the traffic craziness in The City, so we took a slightly more roundabout and less congested route inland, going over the San Raphael Bridge into San Quentin, through Petaluma, and up to Santa Rosa. We spent a nice evening with Stone and Lo, catching up on each others' lives, at a fun little Italian restaurant called Nonnie's in quaint downtown Santa Rosa. The next day, we met Stone out at Michel Schlumberger Winery in Dry Creek Valley for our own personal tour and wine-tasting. Stone has been at the winery for about 13 years, working his way up from grunt to pretty important. His current title is winery biologist and assistant winemaker. He knows everything there is to know about the operation, and is passionate about winemaking and sustainable farming. No pesticides are used. Unlike neighboring wineries that till up the soil and use Round Up between the rows of grapes to get rid of weeds, Michel has a flock of sheep that roams the vineyard, cropping the weeds down and depositing natural fertilizer as they graze. They have beehives and a bee garden to attract bees to pollinate the grape blossoms, and an organic vegetable garden that attracts "good" bugs to eat the "bad" bugs. The winery is beautiful, and the wines that come from it are premium--from $20 to $100 a bottle. We not only got to taste some, but got to take some with us--a generous gift from Stone.