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    California's Wine Country - A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys
    California's Wine Country - A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys
    California's Wine Country - A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    California's Wine Country - A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys

    By Robert White

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    About this ebook

    Tour the vineyards big and small, explore the wineries, taste what they have to offer. The best are described here and almost all are shown in photos. Hundreds of places to stay and eat, things to do and see are detailed, with photos of most. For couples
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHunter Publishing
    Release dateJan 4, 2010
    ISBN9781588438829
    California's Wine Country - A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys

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      Book preview

      California's Wine Country - A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys - Robert White

      California's Wine Country: A Romantic Guide to the Napa & Sonoma Valleys

      Robert & Phyllis White

      HUNTER PUBLISHING, INC.

      Web site: www.hunterpublishing.com

      E-mail: michael@hunterpublishing.com

      IN CANADA:

      Ulysses Travel Publications

      4176 Saint-Denis, Montréal, Québec

      Canada H2W 2M5

      514-843-9882 ext. 2232 / fax 514-843-9448

      IN THE UNITED KINGDOM:

      Windsor Books International

      The Boundary, Wheatley Road, Garsington

      Oxford, OX44 9EJ England

      01865-361122 / fax 01865-361133

      ©2010 Hunter Publishing, Inc.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Brief extracts to be included in reviews or articles are permitted.

      Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this book is correct, but the publisher and authors do not assume, and hereby disclaim, liability to any party for any loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, misleading information or potential problems caused by information in this guide, even if such errors or omissions are a result of negligence, accident or any other cause.

      Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Regents of the University of California for permission to reprint poems 123 and 152 from Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes From San Francisco Chinatown , translated by Marlon K. Hom. © 1987 by regents of the University of California.

      The Bay Area

      B & Bs, Inns, Hotels

      Restaurants

      Best Time to Come

      What to Pack

      Other Useful Information

      Wine Country: Napa & Sonoma

          The Paris Tasting

          In the Vineyards

          In The Wineries

          Buying Wine

          Weather

          When to Come

        Napa Valley

          Wine Tasting & Wine Jargon

          Napa Valley Towns

        Sonoma Valley

          Wine Country

          Sonoma

          Glen Ellen

          Kenwood

          Half Moon Bay

      The Bay Area

      California's first love story, one that's been sighed over for almost two hundred years, can still evoke a tear. It's actually a true story.

      In 1806, Count Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, an emissary of the Czar in charge of the Russian fur trading post in Sitka, sailed down the coast to try to negotiate trade with the Spanish. The King of Spain had a long-standing law that these far-flung, remote colonies were forbidden to deal with foreigners.

      The Commandant of the Presidio was away when Rezanov sailed through the Golden Gate, but the Russian was welcomed by the Commandant's family and the officers of the garrison. The middle-aged Count attended a welcoming reception at the Presidio that first night and danced with Concepcion Arguello. Concepcion was the Commandant's dark-eyed daughter, only 15 years old, but already reputed to be the most beautiful girl in the province.

      Rezanov was overwhelmed! During his stay, he wooed and won her. Despite the difference in ages and religions, he gained the consent of her father. The Count sailed away, after promising Concepcion that he would return for her as soon as he received the permission of the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches for their mixed-faith marriage. Concepcion swore she would wait for him.

      Due to the long and tedious nature of travel at that time, Concepcion knew that her wait would be at least several years. But a decade passed, and more, and still she waited. It was 1842 when Sir George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company arrived in San Francisco with the news that Rezanov had fallen ill and died. The tragedy had occured at the border of Siberia on his return trip home, 36 years before.

      As one writer told the story, a shocked listener said, "But, his enamorada is here... in this room."

      After a deathly silence, the faded Concepcion spoke. No, she died, too.

      San Francisco Bay was discovered late in history, considering how long explorers sailed up and down this coast, and how often they missed finding it. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was the first, in 1542. He almost reached the great bay when severe storms drove him south. A half-dozen others, including Sir Francis Drake, who actually went ashore just a few dozen miles north in Marin in 1579, had no idea they had sailed past the greatest protected anchorage on the Pacific Coast. Not until 1769 was its existence known. During Gaspar de Portola's overland expedition a scout saw the big bay from a hill down the peninsula.

      A Presidio and the Mission Dolores were established in what was called Yerba Buena, later renamed San Francisco. The peninsula was mostly sandy so the Mission Fathers pastured cattle on the rolling hills across the bay in what is now called Oakland. When wood was needed for building, or new spars and water for visiting ships, they sailed up the bay to Marin, or Napa Valley.

      After Spanish rule ended in 1820 and independent Mexico relaxed trading restrictions, more American ships from New England arrived to trade hides and tallow. The Spanish and Mexicans did little farming and mostly ran cattle, which is about all they had to trade for manufactured goods. This was the time of Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, a good look at the life of the earlyCalifornianos.

      Another romance we know of had a much happier ending. It took place in the 1820s when Maria Antonia Martinez, whose father was the new Commandante, met William Richardson, the first foreigner to settle here. (Apparently, all commandantes had beautiful, nubile daughters.) Richardson deserted from the whaler Orion. Within a year he was acting as Captain of the Bay, teaching the populace carpentry, caulking, navigation and making time with Maria.

      Two years later, William and Maria were married. William, now baptized Antonio, became a naturalized citizen, which put him in line to receive a big land grant. Don Antonio was a busy lad indeed. If you take the Marin ferry, look around before you arrive in Sausalito; you are in Richardson Bay.

      Gold was discovered in 1848, about a hundred miles east of Sacramento. Tens of thousands of men flocked here from all over the world, each determined to dig the yellow metal from the earth. For some, there was another reason for taking off for the distant Cal-if-or-ny-ay: it seemed to be a good chance to start over after a few mistakes had been made. A popular gold rush ballad went:

      Oh, what was your name in the States?

      Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?

      Did you murder your wife and flee for your life?

      Oh, what was your name in the States?

      The few women who came also planned to find gold, although they had no intention of digging in the dirt for it. Instead, most made their fortunes by establishing Houses of Horizontal Pleasure.

      In the century and a half that followed, San Francisco became a big city. The other areas around the bay, like Marin, Sonoma Valley, Napa Valley, Berkeley, Oakland and Half Moon Bay down the peninsula, developed into unique places, each with its own charm.

      This book offers a number of different ways to achieve a romantic weekend in any one of these locales. The choice is yours.

      B & Bs, Inns, Hotels

      I have seen purer liquors, better segars, finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger Dirk and Bowie knives, and prettier courtesans here in San Francisco than in any other place I have ever visited, and it is my unbiased opinion that California can and does furnish the best bad things that are obtainable in America.

      Hinton R. Helper, 1855, Land of Gold: Reality vs. Fiction

      Some places call themselves bed and breakfasts, some inns, and others hotels. Inn seems to be the preferred title, since both hotels and B&Bs sometimes call themselves that. What's the difference anyway?, you may ask. Strictly speaking, a bed and breakfast is someone's home; a place where the owner actually lives and rents out a

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