Friday, 5 October. Today was our planned trip over to Mendocino
County wine country, especially the Anderson Valley region, well-known for
their Pinot Noir, Gewürztraminer, and off-dry Riesling wines. Pinot Noir, however, is what’s making the
Valley famous - it now ranks as one of the top Pinot Noir regions in North
America. While production is not huge, quality is soaring, as the Valley
becomes more and more known for producing sleek, powerful Pinots. So, what’s making this happen, you might ask?
Well, an unusual transverse appellation, cuts laterally through the coastal
range rather than lying between ridges; Anderson Valley is also only 10-15
miles from the cold Pacific Ocean. These factors result in a wide range of
daily temps, with daily highs and lows diverging up to 40 or 50 degrees. This
enables Pinot Noir growers to keep acid development in line with sugar and
flavor formation through long, warm Indian summers. Anyway, I digress; back to today’s outing. To
get us to the coast and through the Anderson Valley, my brother, Laren, tipped
us off to a very picturesque route we could take, Hiway 128 out of Cloverdale that
connects Hiway 101 with California’s coastal Hiway 1. If ever in this region and looking for some
beautiful scenery – especially the coastal redwoods and huge stands of Douglas
firs – then 128 is the way to go. An added plus is the wonderful wine country
of the Anderson Valley. This fertile
valley of rolling hills, about 20-miles in length, has literally dozens of
wineries – and tasting rooms – that can be accessed directly from 128. A word of caution: the first 25 miles of 128
from Cloverdale to Boonville (the beginning of Anderson Valley) is VERY twisty
and curvy, including some hairpin turns.
And this wasn’t even the worst road we were on today – but more on that
later.
Anderson
Valley viewpoint
The Valley is a sparsely populated region in western
Mendocino County, located about 100 miles or a two-hour drive north of San
Francisco. Once we reached Boonville, we began seeing one winery after
another. This pattern continued
throughout the rest of our trip through the Valley as we cruised through the
small towns of Yorkville, Philo, and finally Navarro, which marked the end of Anderson
Valley. The highway more or less follows
the Navarro River and its tributaries until it empties into the Pacific Ocean
at the junction of Hiways 1 and 128. There are any number of websites that offer
plenty of info on the Anderson Valley; here’s one that I like: Anderson Valley Appellation.
Our first wine tasting stop today – and it was a beautiful,
low-70’s day, with some low clouds – was at the Breggo winery. Breggo, BTW, means “sheep” in
“Boontling.” And what is Boontling you
may ask? Well, basically it’s a made-up
folk language by the residents of Boonville. While based on English, Boontling's unusual
words are unique to Boonville. Scottish Gaelic and Irish, and some Spanish,
also influenced the vocabulary of the language. Boontling was invented in the late 19th
century and had quite a following at the turn of the 20th century.
It is now mostly spoken only by aging native Anderson Valley residents. Because
Boonville only has about 700 residents, Boontling is an extremely esoteric
dialect, and is quickly becoming archaic. It does have, however, over a
thousand unique words/phrases. If
interested, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Boontling: Boontling Wikipedia ,
and here’s something from the Anderson Valley Historical Society.
But back to the wines we tasted at the Breggo winery. We were their first customers of the day, so
the tasting room lady spent quite a bit of time with us, chatting as we sampled
the wines. We ended up buying two
bottles of wine: a very nice Chardonnay and an excellent Gewürztraminer. This latter purchase would prove to be our
best bet of today’s wine tasting adventure, since we ended up with a total of
four different Gewürztraminers. After
Breggo we stopped at Goldeneye, which turned out to be a gem of a wine tasting
experience. While we bought no wines, we
thoroughly enjoyed the whole encounter with this winery. A tip to my brother, Laren: if ever through
this area, suggest stopping at Goldeneye and opt for one of their wine
flights. We took the combination of
whites and Pinot Noirs – a good choice.
The charge is $15, but we shared the wine, so not so expensive. The entire experience was first class all the
way. The winery has beautiful
landscaping and an outdoor wine tasting patio, with a wonderful view of their
vineyards and the surrounding hills. One
of the most beautiful wine tasting settings I’ve come across – and I’ve been
doing this for a number of years. We
were served individual glasses of each wine, accompanied by individual coasters
with info on each coaster about that wine.
We were also served small bowls of dried cherries and toasted almonds to
accompany the wine tasting. Like I said,
first class from the wine tasting room to patio to panoramic views. Check out these photos from the winery,
That's me on the left, blue shirt, sipping a glass of wine and enjoying life!
From Goldeneye we continued our journey to the coast on 128
and stopped at the Toulouse Vineyards in Philo, CA. Toulouse is a smaller, more Mom-and-Pop, boutique
winery, but very friendly. They are
apparently re-doing their tasting room, so we were ushered into some sort of
wine warehouse that contained bins and bins of freshly picked grapes.
Toulouse Vineyards
Toulouse wine casks waiting the aging process
We ended up buying another bottle of Gewurtz, along with two
boxes of delicious crackers that were served while we tasted the various wines.
I simply have to “plug” these crackers
since they were very, very good. The
brand is John Wm Macy’s Cheese Crisps (all natural sourdough); this particular
cracker flavor was Cheddar and Asiago. If you can ever get your hands on these
puppies, try a box. We bought two and
I’m sure we’re going to wish later on we had purchased more! Oh, I almost forgot: We were greeted by the
winery’s official greeter, Tess, a golden lab.
Very friendly, a beautiful animal!
Tess
Our final wine tasting for the day – not by design, but more
on that later – turned out to be at Navarro Vineyards, one recommended to us by
several local residents in this region.
Navarro was pretty busy when we stopped by, so this wasn’t a very
personal wine tasting where one can chat with the wine servers in a more
leisurely manner. But we tasted the full
suite of whites, including several Gold Medal winners: two Chardonnays; a
Sauvignon Blanc; an off-dry Riesling; and an Edelzwicker. While all were quite
good, we once again ended up buying the one very nice Gewurtz that we
tried. Go figure. BTW, Navarro uses Babydoll sheep to weed its
vineyards throughout the year.
Originally a coastal English breed, these miniature sheep are quite
thrifty and don’t require grain or supplemental feed; the cover crops in
Navarro’s vineyards provide ample feed.
By the time we finished our wine tasting at Navarro, time
had once again slipped away from us. We
had things to do and places to be, so we pointed the Saturn west and headed for
the coast. We reached the junction of 128
and 1 a little after 1:00, so we thought we’d look for a place to eat in nearby
Mendocino. Well, let me tell you: I
couldn’t find a restaurant or café (other than a burger joint) to save my
life. I did spy a couple B&B’s and
inns as we were leaving town that might have offered a bite to eat, but nary a
dining establishment that suited our desires – mainly seafood. So, it was off further north to Ft.
Bragg. Once again, it was hard to find
something other than fast food on 101 that runs through this coastal town. So, we turned around at the far end of town,
and were heading south when Lynette suddenly spotted a small sign pointing to
“The Harbor.” I made a sharp turn and we
followed this rather non-descript road, winding our way down to a tiny, but
very picturesque, and busy harbor. We ended up for lunch at Silver’s at The
Wharf where Lynette FINALLY (she’s been looking for some while) had her Crab
Louie salad. I opted for an
equally-satisfying crab melt sandwich.
Very tidy lunch indeed, even if it did take us a while to find a place
to eat. After satisfying our hunger
pangs, we headed south on 101 (and later 1) to hopefully locate some trace of
where Lynette’s great-great-grandparents Pedersen had lived and were
married. Somewhere near present-day Elk
should be what remains of the town of Cuffey’s Cove. The current California State Hiway map shows
a Cuffey’s Cove and Cuffey’s Inlet just a mile or so north of Elk – so that’s
where we headed. As a side note, I knew
I needed gas, but opted NOT to fill up in Ft. Bragg, thinking I would find
something in Mendocino or another town down the road. This would come back to haunt me later. As we neared Elk, we suddenly came around a
sharp corner and there, glaring at us in cold hard steel letters were the words
“Cuffey’s Cove” over the entrance to a Catholic cemetery.
As I slammed on the brakes, we suddenly saw a
small dirt road off to our right. I quickly
pulled in and there is front of us, overlooking the mighty Pacific Ocean, with
an absolutely spectacular view, was an old Protestant cemetery. We were shocked – the old Cuffey’s Cove
cemetery was still in use. And this
location must be very close to where the actual town once existed before Elk’s thriving
lumber industry doomed it into oblivion.
Coffey's Cove Protestant cemetary, looking out at the Pacific Ocean
A view from the cemetery looking across the water to the town of Elk.
We must have walked around both cemeteries for over an hour, looking for
any “Pedersen” that might be buried there.
We knew Lynette’s great-great-grandparents had separately migrated from
Denmark to this part of California, married, and then moved on to Washington
State; we also knew that her great-great-grandfather, Neils Pedersen, had an
uncle who also lived in the Cuffey’s Cove area.
Ergo, the reason we looked at all the gravestones. We did find a “Charles Petersen,” and
although the spelling is not exactly right, it could be a relative. The dates are about right, so this will
require additional genealogy research.
But Lynette was sky-high that we’d found the cemetery and couldn’t wait
to tell her Mom. What luck!
By now it was getting late, so we decided to forgo any more
wine tasting on the way back to Cloverdale and head back to our
campground. But first I needed some
gas. Alas, we drove down the coast for
some time and I began to seriously worry.
I knew Point Arena was several more miles south (opposite direction that
I wanted to go), so I made the decision to trust our luck. And YES!
Point Arena had one measly service station where I filled that tank at –
now get this – FIVE DOLLARS a gallon!
Cost me over $70 to fill up the Saturn!
But, hey – I figured I probably would have paid just about ANYTHING at
that point. Lesson learned: fill up when
you have the chance.
So, now we headed north on Hiway 1 again, and eventually
east to Cloverdale. I checked our map
and found a small road that ran east to Boonville, where we could pick up 128
again; this could save us some time. I
should have paid attention to the name of the road and concluded there might be
a logical reason it was named Mountain View Road. I have NEVER, EVER driven on a more twisty,
curvy road than this one. At times I was
gripping the wheel in the standard “10 and 2 o’clock” fashion, turning the steering
wheel this way, then that way, then left, thn right, and then left again. I felt like I was playing the Nintendo Mario Cart video game with my
granddaughter, Rayne, or grandson, Ben – both are so much better than their
PaPa, BTW. At times this road just
hugged the ridge line, as we moved in and out of one stand ofHUGE redwood trees
to another, often creating a dark canopy above us as we continued to weave our
way through this nightmare. We passed
very few signs of civilization, and the road often became one lane. Thank goodness the road was paved, although
“paved” is used loosely in describing the road.
We were both very glad indeed to finally come out at Boonville – and
very relieved to reach our campground just before dark.
All in all, today turned out to be a really great day of
wine tasting, sightseeing, exploring the redwoods of Mendocino, and of course,
the exciting genealogy discoveries. Did
I mention exhausting? Oh, yes – we
decided today’s excitement and adventure were enough for the time being. Believe tomorrow just might be a “down day”
and we’ll just be lazy. Might take in a
movie or just stay put and do some reading.
More to come….
P.S. I found out
later that the “infamous Mountain View Road” is one leg of the four to six day,
250-420 mile Mendocino bicycle tour. No
wonder I gripped that wheel so tightly!
