Day 2: The Wine (and the Truth) is Out There

One of the best things about being on holidays is being able to get up in the morning when you feel like it. We typically head out in search of breakfast at about 10. It's just so civilized! This morning we headed back up to Healdsburg and had breakfast at Bovolo, under the watchful gaze of their mascot (Wilbur?). Mmmm...smoked pig meat...mmmm.

There are many fabulous places to lighten your wallet in Healdsburg (that's code for we bought some nice Christmas presents for ourselves and others there).

Once again, we discovered the value and wisdom of having a map to match the plan. The backroads around Healdsburg are lovely at this time of year. They don't actually lead to anywhere or anything. Certainly, they didn't take us to where we wanted to go, which was the Hawkes (!) vineyard and tasting room.









The Hawkes tasting room is located just a few minutes north of Healdsburg, in the basin of a beautiful valley surrounded by rolling hillsides covered in row after row of crimson, yellow and orange grapevines. Mark's attempt to cash-in on sharing a surname with these folks didn't get us very far. Although, the pourings did seem rather generous...The wine was actually some of the best we'd tasted so far!

















Just up the road we found Stryker Sonoma - home to some of the best Zinfandels in the region. We tried them all and they were yummy, but in the end we left with a Merlot.






Just as we were leaving, Mark noticed a familiar looking fellow and his partner belly up to the tasting bar. He was pretty sure that it was none other than Canadian actor Dean Haglund, one of the infamous and amusing "lone gunmen" from the X-Files! Mark was too shy to say anything but Linette (in a friendly and unobtrusive way) managed to confirm Mark's suspicions. Dean was very gracious and seemed pleased to have been recognized despite having shorn his trademark locks. So, that was pretty cool.


We left Dean in the company of his two beautiful Doberman Pinschers and ventured up the long, wind-y, single-laned backroad to Cloverdale. It was quite a bit less scenic than we'd hoped for but very peaceful; in the 40 minutes we were up there we only passed 3 other cars (thank God - did I mention it was a wind-y, single-laned road?).




Ever so grateful to find ourselves in civilization again, we headed straight for Hwy 101, back to Healdsburg to pick up our earlier purchases and enjoy another great meal.



Now that this post is done, it's off to bed early because tomorrow we are going for a hot air balloon ride at 7am! Stay tuned!