The Godfather, Sofia, Su Yuen and wonderful ports!

Monday, 8 October.  Our last day in the Northern Sonoma County wine country.  Decided to head south and see what wineries we could find.  Lynette first wanted to stop by the Francis Ford Coppola Winery  near Geyersville just off Hiway 101…quite easy to find and spot.  And a bit of Hollywood out in the middle of the wine country.  Obviously Coppola has spared no money to make this a first-class winery.  I’m sure our photos won’t do it justice.  One just has to EXPERIENCE this happening. 

And when I say a “little bit of Hollywood” I'm not kidding.  There are two huge swimming pools (totaling 3,600 sq-ft) connected by a "swim-through" where small jets create a water bridge to swim under. There is a a circular bar/café just off to the side, all surrounded by individual changing rooms called cabines that can rented on a daily basis…and lots and lots of chaise lounge chairs and patio sets with umbrellas.  Just amazing! 

Cabines

There are also tennis courts, bocce courts, and even a pavilion for various types of entertainment at the winery. The pavilion was inspired by the bandshell that appeared in The Godfather: Part II and featuring the original mural displayed in the 1974 film. The winery also features a really first-class restaurant, Rustic. A feature of this unique restaurant is the parrilla (pronounced “pah-REE-jah”), an authentic Argentine grill, providing a true South American experience of delicious, wood-grilled meats.  We didn’t eat at the restaurant because of time, but we just might make reservations our next time out this way.  As far as the wine tasting, again, first-class.  We ended up buying four bottles: two Sofia (named after Coppola’s only daughter) wines, a Riesling and a Rose; and two Su Yuen (means “white cloud” in Chinese according to the young lady serving us) Rieslings, just a tad sweeter than the Sofias. 

        

After buying our wine, we went into the museum located on the first and second floors, with all sorts of movie memorabilia (posters, props, etc.) and of course, all kinds of gifts.  We saw the Tucker car, from Coppola’s movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream; Don Corleone’s desk from The Godfather; and lots of movie stills from an assortment of his films, including Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, Patton (Coppola co-wrote the script) Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, Peggy Sue Got Married, Dram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Rainmaker, just to name a few.  Coppola’s career as a film director, producer and screenwriter spans five decades, which means the winery’s museum has some pretty amazing items to explore – including several Academy Awards and Cannes Film Festival awards that are displayed in a glass case that we got to see.  Pretty impressive up close.  Even included the envelopes that the presenter opens to announce who won the award.  Much of the memorabilia is integrated throughout the property so you can enjoy it all while you taste wine, peruse the retail merchandise or make your way to the Rustic restaurant. If you get the chance, don’t miss the opportunity to visit and tour this winery.  Really, this is a must see.

After the FFC Winery we continued our journey south, visiting several other wineries in the area and tasting a variety of wines.  We stopped at the Dry Creek winery in Healdsburg and after sampling their ware, decided it was time for lunch.  So we bought a chilled bottle of their Foggy Oaks chardonnay, some assorted cheeses and Italian salami, and a box of crackers, and proceeded to find a comfy spot in their picnic area for a spot of lunch.  After lunch we tried several other wine-tasting venues, and by now they all pretty much run together.  One, however, the TrentadueWinery  in Geyersville, stand out for its ports.  This particular day was their “Port Tasting” day and I opted for the full line of their ports – and man, was I ever glad I did.  Jamie, I know how you like ports and man how I wish you could have tasted these delicious ports with me – these were some great ports.  Since our Winnebago is even now probably carrying far too much wine, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a bottle of each port, though I was sorely tempted.  In the end, I opted for their white Viognier Port and one of their Chocolate Amore ports made with Merlot grapes; even Lynette had to say both these ports were quite tasty.  Scrumptious, delicious, and lip-smacking, I believe, was her exact words!  In addition to the above two ports they also offer a Petit Syrah Port, a very smooth Merlot port, a very nice Zinfandel port, and a Trentadue Angelica port made from Mission grapes. Mission grapes were once abundant but are now very hard to find. The grapes and the wine made from them have a long history in California dating back to the first years of colonization when the Franciscan monks made very sweet, high alcohol wine for sacramental purposes.  I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my port tasting at Trentadue and highly recommend it for any and all port drinkers.

  

Before we left for our day of wine tastings, Lynette had put our dinner in the crockpot so the motorhome was filled with the yummy aroma of  chicken stew!  And  man, did it taste as good as it smelled.  We did what we could to get ready for our departure from the Cloverdale area tomorrow morning, and then hit the sack.  Tomorrow will see us heading south for another TT campground, Morgan Hill, just south of San Jose and just off 101.  Using this as a base, we plan to re-visit some old stomping grounds from early in my Air Force career, mainly Monterey Bay and Carmel.  I had two tours of duty at the Presidio of Monterey to study languages, one in 1968 (Romanian) and another in 1971 (German).  The first tour saw us newly marrieds living in an apartment in Pacific Grove, just outside the back gate of the Presidio. On our second tour we lived in Salinas (about 20 miles inland, away from the foggy weather), so we might also wander over that way.  Lots of sightseeing in-and-around this area – just pray for good sunny weather and no fog!