But before we headed up there, we spent a week in wonderful Napa Valley, at a campground we've enjoyed before. We had an excellent dinner in Napa town at a restaurant that was new to us - Angele. And we loved our lunch at Market in the nearby town of St. Helena. Below is the massive fire mahogany bar there - imported in pieces from Europe and reassembled.
Several times over the past few years we've made reservations for lunch in Santa Rosa at St. Francis Winery, and we did it again on this trip. It's a special experience. Sixteen or twenty guests are seated at semi-circular tables, and four or five courses are served, each with a paired glass of wine. Hostesses describe each course and each wine before they are brought out. Elegant and fun. To be honest, the food, while very tasty, wasn't as delicious as in visits past, but it was beautifully presented, and one wine in particular, an old-vine Zinfandel, was spectacular.
Just across the highway from that St. Francis Winery is a large housing development called Oakmont. A friend of ours, Tom Jorde - met through the book club I used to be a part of - and his wife Mary Anne recently bought a beautiful home there overlooking one of two golf courses, and we arranged to meet him to show us around. He was enthusiastic about the opportunities at Oakmont for socialization, clubs, exercise, and activities in general. Oakmont is a restricted community. That is, at least one of each home's residents must be over 55 years old. We don't want to be around old people exclusively ... but let's face it, that is our demographic.
Oakmont is in the Sonoma wine-growing area, next door to Napa Valley, and I have to admit that living in a wine-centric region could be pretty sweet. Nothing lovelier than fields of grape vines in the fall. A world-class restaurant scene. Unless we fall madly in love with Ashland, we may decide to rent a house in Oakmont in the spring and see how we fit.
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