Where there’s not much Merlot anymore and the grapes often grow on trees.

Thursday: My mobile phone rang and it was Cloud Four’s retirement-handling investment managers, again, calling to prompt me to continue on the apparently endless task of moving our company’s SimpleIRA plan away from the horror that is ADP.

“Can’t talk,” I said, both curtly and gleefully, “I’m going through security at the airport.” As if I were old hat, savvy, a veteran of the business-y skies. A connoisseur of tiny toiletries, a maestro of mileage plans. Who am I kidding, though? My carry-on bag doesn’t even have wheels. And really, I never want to be so air-slick that I look like that guy in the concourse C wine bar wearing a suit with a baseball cap. Because that’s just douchey.

But isn’t there a certain appeal to the ship-shapedness of airline travel? The efficiency it forces you to adopt and the kitschy lameness of the airline magazines tucked into seat pockets? This coming from someone who until a few months ago could be predictably triggered into a panic attack simply by the thought of the way the plastic curves around aircraft windows: it must be progress. I can feel myself forcing new wrinkles into my brain, replacing old associations (dragons) with new (kitteny-soft).

David and I postponed our annual anniversary wine-related travel (our anniversary is Aug. 6) to take advantage of cheap fares (me! Taking advantage of cheap fares! Who’d have ever thought?) to Sacramento, which, take it from me, I know, is not a city that provides much value. We spent the long weekend wine-tasting in the Sonoma Valley in a rented Kia so laughably forgettable that we repeatedly tried to unlock the wrong car. At $25 a day, unlimited mileage, it was practically free, so I’m still kind of laughing.

Less free was the Fairmont Mission Inn and Spa and Fiscal Rape Center. Our room was about the size of the interior of our Kia and redolent of fresh chevre. It looked out over a fence-avec-HVAC-cum-alley-and-or-dungheap and had (I’m sure very energy efficient) fluorescent lamps that cast a chartreuse aura of vomit onto the peach-hued walls. This is entirely my fault. I was all “OMG Fairmont hells to the yes” and “OK, I know it’s $480 a night but I found a deal” and “I really found a deal” and “please, Mr. Pencil, I’ll pay $100 per night out of my own money” and fell blathering into a puddle of adoration over the “Salutation” options on their online reservation form (“His Royal Highness”, “Rear Admiral”, “Sultan”, “Inspector”, “First Lady”, “Frau”, and “The Doctor and Mr.” which, if I were able to use honestly, would pretty much sum up my life as Entirely Awesome; as it was I had to settle for “Mrs. and Mr.” because I tend to tell the truth to a fault). They also asked about my newspaper preference (local versus national as if a question like that needs to be asked), which got me all bothered, too. This was rather ironic as, during the entire time, nary a newspaper actually made an appearance.

Planning our attack over breakfast at the Sunflower Cafe in Sonoma.

We landed in Sacramento at dusk and it was kind of hot and weird. The flight itself was many kinds of just fine, but I’m still getting used to the dislocation of point-to-point travel. Recall that I’ve been in 48 states, by car, and that I’ve fully traversed the country probably a dozen times now. I am used to journeys. This single-dimensional travel (point to point) breaks my two-dimensional sensation expectations (a line). I felt a bit like I had entered another universe. Somewhat of an existential hangover afflicted me for the first 24 hours.

Here is what I learned about the Sonoma Valley:

• Zinfandel is king.
• Wineries are pretty big, even when they think they’re small. The wineries that were small enough to hearken to what things are like here in the Willamette Valley were ecstatic about how tiny they were and weren’t we just freaking out at how tiny they were?!
• Regarding the aforementioned Zinfandel, it’s been around for a while. The wineries that have old vines brag about that, while the ones that have newer vines claim that the older ones are gross. The latter seems to predominate. Opinion is also split about the age-ability of Zinfandel.
• No one is fucking drinking Merlot.
• The wines are surprisingly subtle, refined and consistent for such a warmish client. Expected: fruit bombs. Got: silky things. (Also some fruit bombs).
• Pinot Noir has a footing, but I vastly prefer Oregon’s and Burgundy’s styles.
• Wines are medium-priced. Right around or slightly below the average going rate for decent bottles in the Willamette Valley ($25-35 for good to great).
• Tasting fees were vastly lower (in many cases non-existent) than I expected.
• The Chardonnay is, with some exceptions, totally forgettable. Take this with a grain of salt, because I don’t like Chardonnay that’s seen oak. I tolerate Chablis but detest hot, oak-stinked Chard. Sonoma’s are in the middle of the spectrum.
• Many of the larger wineries have adopted some of the extravagant habits of the Napa Valley (trams, chateaus, moats, extensive caves, other distracting dipshittery).
• My favorite area–especially for scenery–was the Dry Creek Valley AVA on the northern end of Sonoma’s growing region.

The Russian River valley: far more redwoods that I realized.

Typical gnarled Zinfandel vine. This is a head-pruned vine, making it look far different than the training styles normally seen in Oregon. It's self-supporting. An old style. Good for hotter/sunnier climates.

Tasting at Eric Ross in Glen Ellen.

For some inexplicable reason, we spent the weekend listening to hip hop/R&B/pop stations. “I think I found Glen Ellen’s party station,” David would say. Later, I would say: “Is this Rohnert Park’s party station?” We spent two nights at the Fairmont, during which our white Kia was invariably parked between white Mercedes S-Classes and we’d manage to somehow get confused and try to get into a Mercedes even though Kias aren’t even from the same planet as Benzes and how could this possibly happen but it did.

On the morning we were to check out I lost control of myself and bought a day pass to the spa. Actually, it was great. There was beautiful foliage there, including lime trees with actual limes on them. Also, their flax and banana trees and jasmine and lavender and olive trees didn’t completely and totally die after the wretchedly cold winter like ours did around here because they probably did not have a wretchedly cold winter. Sigh and jealousy. I wore a robe and laid around on a chaise and didn’t talk to anyone and stared at the middle-aged (but fit–this is central California!) women float by in the pool on noodles–wait, WTF is with the noodles? Serene patio, serene tastefully stuccoed walls, serene and sober landscaping: and bright pink freaking pool noodles which you were apparently supposed to twist around yourself and catch some respite while taking the waters as if wrapping a foamy tube or several around yourself was dignified. After sunning I headed inside toward the “bathing ritual”, which, like other spas I’ve been to, was riddled with lofty Latin names: the tepidarium, the emascularium, the vomitorium, whatever. Though the nomenclature hearkens slightly toward pederasty: it was also pretty great. I’d give the place a B to a B+, props to the overall experience, with demerits for the so-so locker room and the lackluster service.

At the spa; that lime tree has limes on it. That's my leg, yup.

Rigde's Dry Valley tasting room is straw bale construction. It was cool inside, and dark, which was nice, because it was over 100 degrees out and blazing. Also, the wine was quite good.

This picture cracks me up. Distortion much?

Tasting notes. I can't recall the name of this winery. It was something like Mauritius. Maureen? Maurifer? Malificent? Mandrake? Malcontent?

Bella Winery, in Dry Creek Valley. It was fairly gimmicky here, a real zoo. But quite pretty.

Inside the cave at Bella.

The view from Bella.

Our third night was at a hastily-Hotwired Doubletree Inn and though our room was large enough to farm ostriches in comfortably it also smelled like mildew and made me feel sad and probably stayed around 82 degrees for the entire stay. The locale it was in was so dull that we opted to dine in the hotel itself, which at first seemed like a regrettable idea. Our waiter, Austin, as I tweeted at the time, “first made me feel like I’d been dateraped, but then admitted that the local Chardonnay they had by the glass was ‘crappy’.” Bravo, par excellence, I seriously wish all waiters were like this, weird gawky blond wispy mustache and over-eager car-parts-store-salesman creepiness aside.

Sunday we dared to venture into Napa, which was totally okay. We spent a while at a private tasting–we learned that legally all Napa wineries built after 1990 can only taste by appointment–at Larksmead, and then, how could we not, visited Honig. The latter was a bit disappointing.

Then we were late and didn’t realize how far it was back to Sacramento and it took forever despite Mr. Pencil’s noble Kia-thrashing hammer lane maneuvers, and there was hasty concoction of checkable box with all sorts of wine and clothes and miscellany in it. Also: holy moly Sacramento has a small airport. I felt like we were at a fly-in camp. The flight back was odd. I didn’t have any anticipatory anxiety, and my demeanor the entire time was calm, but I felt off, like I was stalling or not getting better. I caught myself a couple of times counting the minutes until we were due to land. I am not proud of that. But no journey of this magnitude is without wrinkles and I hold some optimism for the future!

David, at Honig.

The flight back. You might be wondering what I'm doing and what that facey thing is I am making. I don't know either.

Home again!