Day 2 of our Sonoma tour consisted of two things - eat and drink.
Growing up on the east coast we are not familiar with the coffee chain that is Peet's Coffee & Tea. There seem to be many of these shops in the area and since we needed a morning coffee pick-me-up it seemed like a good choice. I would not complain if Peet's decided to enter the New Orleans market.
Last night when we were walking around the square in Healdsburg we noticed an interesting combination of shops, Copperfield's Books and Bovolo Restaurant. We were intrigued by the combination of a book shop and a restaurant.
The menu item that caught my eye was the pork cheek, my favorite part of the pig. The Bovolo menu advertises a "world famous pork cheek w/ roasted red peppers & salsa verde". I had to try it, so when we were leaving Simi and looking for a bite to eat for lunch Bovolo was an obvious choice. I had the pork cheek sandwich and Lindsay had a house-made salumi sandwich with pickled peppers, mozzarella and arugula. All I can say is that these sandwiches were GOOD! You can tell that these people know their meat.
We ate dinner Ume Japanese Bistro which turned out to have some VERY good sushi. We ordered an Alaskan (Salmon & Avocado), Pink Panther (Tuna & Avocado rolled in Soy Bean Paper) and our regular standby the Rainbow roll (Snow Crab & Avocado wrapped w/ assorted fish). All three of the rolls were excellent choices with very fresh fish and flavorful sauces.
Now on to the Drink. We visited 4 wineries yesterday. Our first stop was Simi Winery where we took the tour of the winery. This winery is one of the oldest in Sonoma so there was a good bit of history that I found interesting.
Our second stop was at Armida Winery, a smaller winery with a selection of wines from the neighboring appalachians. After tasting their wines neither of us were very impressed, but due to the late harvest this year I was able to get some good shots of their grapes still on the vine.
On the day of our check-in, our hotel hosted a wine tasting in the hotel lobby featuring wine from Twomey Cellars. We discovered that the winery was just down the road from Armida so we decided to stop in to see what else they had to offer. The views from the wine tasting room were spectacular. The winery specialty is Pinot Noir so we tried a few from various areas of Sonoma.
Our final stop for the day was at Arista Winery. A small tasting stop quickly turned into an hour long tour of the winery grounds. Jeff, our pourer, was Houston native and a big fan of New Orleans. Once he found out we were from the Big Easy we received some special treatment. We tried several excellent wines (mostly reds) and left with a bottle of Zinfandel from their small production which is not widely available outside of California.
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