Another wine country

After a long time away, my sweet lady came to visit me from the land of kangaroos, and what better way to celebrate than to go and visit the surroundings of San Francisco? That's right! The surroundings include the wine country! For my dear friends of Sydney, this might remind you of the Hunter Valley. Indeed it felt a bit like going to the Lovedale long lunch. When one mentions the wine country, here in northern California, there are several areas, mainly to the north of the city. One of them is Sonoma Valley, and that is where we headed. Apparently the sovereign wines of these lands are Chardonnays, Cabernet-Sauvignons and Zinfandels. For those who would ever consider crashing at my little flat, my favourite are Cabernet-Sauvignons (hint hint).

Sonoma itself is a cute little town, and we were delighted to visit, among the other places, the cheese factory. This is a big deli that lets you sample a lot of cheeses for free. Pity that all of them were just variations of flavoured Jacks and Cheddars. What about trying to make some more types of cheese? France alone has over 350 (according to my secret sources), and Italy almost as many.

Fortunately, seafood here is also outstanding, and well worth the trip. We had some oysters from a farm in Point Reyes, including two giant oysters that took us about half an hour to open.