NorCal has rustic delights and city sights
From San Francisco to Napa Valley, there is a lot to do in the Golden State’s northern half
We expected to enjoy a wide variety of fine California wine during our visit to San Francisco and northern California. What we didn’t expect was an equally fine introduction to outstanding chocolate.
A three hour gourmet chocolate tour is focused on the new wave of artisan chocolatiers who are following in the tradition of Domingo Ghirardelli, the Italian immigrant who opened a chocolate factory in San Francisco in 1852.
Our walking tour, beginning at the Hyatt Regency, took us to seven small chocolate shops, each using high quality beans, innovative production methods and exotic fillings. Janie Cormier and Ben Houle of Edmonton have been to San Francisco three times — they told us it’s their favourite U. S. city — but read about the chocolate tour on the Internet and jumped at the chance.
“It was really interesting,” Janie said. “The samples were very generous and our guide gave us many interesting facts about the history of ( the) city.”
San Francisco is indeed fascinating for both new and returning visitors. We stayed in the central part of town, near Union Square, in a delightful 1925 Gothic- style hotel, The Kensington Park. Every afternoon in the lobby, complimentary tea and sherry are served — a nice touch.
Union Square is near the terminus of the main cable car line, an iconic part of San Francisco that attracts seven million riders annually. Begun in 1873 to traverse the many hills too steep for horse- drawn carriages, each car is operated by manual levers that grip a cable running continually just below street level. Like many others, we hopped on a running board, hanging onto a pole while the cable car climbed Nob Hill. It’s one of the great transportation thrills of the world.
Another great way to see the city is
The food and wine we enjoyed in the Napa Valley were as impressive as the hot springs.
on one of the many open deck buses that provide a hop- on, hop- off service to numerous tourist destinations. Starting in Union Square, we took a tourist bus through streets filled with shops and expensive, elegant Victorian homes to Golden Gate Park. Two of the best museums in the United States are located in the park across from each other. The de Young Museum specializes in American art and features over 1,000 paintings, 800 sculptures and 3,000 art objects dating from the 17th to 21st centuries. The California Academy of Sciences is one of the largest natural history museums in the world and contains a planetarium, an aquarium and a rainforest exhibit enclosed in a 30 metre glass dome. It’s not hard to spend a whole day touring and admiring these two buildings.
We had only three days in San Francisco, but we enjoyed a couple of memorable meals. Ala Romana is a Nob Hill restaurant, opened just a year ago, featuring new American cuisine — great local wine, of course — with Italian, Peruvian and Japanese influences ( fusion food is big in California!). We also had an excellent lunch at the Presidio Social Club, a busy contemporary restaurant within the grounds of the Presidio, a military base turned into a park. Along with crab croquettes on spicy aioli mayonnaise, we loved their unique and tasty cocktails.
The next day, we rented a car and drove 90 minutes to a sommelier’s paradise — the Napa Valley. More surprises were in store.
With its ideal Mediterraneanesque climate and soil, the Napa Valley produces world- class wines, particularly cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. The valley, covered with vineyards, is only one- eighth the size of the Bordeaux wine region in France — just 50 kilometres long and eight kilometres wide at its widest — but it’s home to more than 450 wineries including major producers like Robert Mondavi, Beringer and Sutter Home.
About 110,000 people live in five communities along the Napa Valley floor. We stayed in the northernmost town of Calistoga at the historic Indian Springs Resort. The fault lines that cause many earthquakes in this region also release multiple hot springs. This thermal activity provides heat for the famous Indian Springs mud baths. With some trepidation, we took the plunge. Shedding all our clothes, we were gently helped into large shallow tubs filled with local volcanic ash and warmed by mineral water. It was sticky and gooey but oh so relaxing. After about 15 minutes, we got out of the tub, used our hands to scrape off as much mud as we could and then showered the rest away. After a 10- minute soak in a large bathtub filled with hot mineral water, we headed to the resort’s Olympic- size pool. Afterwards, we both agreed that our skin never felt better.
The food and wine we enjoyed in the Napa Valley were as impressive as the hot springs. Most of the seven wineries we visited included creative food pairings with generous samples of the best valley vintages. In some cases, like the Hall Winery in nearby St. Helena, the house chef led a discussion of her exquisite pairings. At the B Cellars in Oakville, the resident sommelier took us on a tour through the vineyard and herb garden before a sampling of four outstanding red and white wines accompanied by small, imaginative bites of fresh, local cuisine.
Along with the Sterling Winery ( reached by a cable car), the most impressive looking building in Napa is the Castello di Amorosa, a giant 107room replica of a 13th century Tuscan castle built by a wealthy Italian- American and opened in 2007. In the basement, along with wine- producing and storage areas, is an authentic- looking torture chamber, including an iron maiden.
Our best dinner in the Napa Valley was at JoLe in Calistoga. We had a five- course tasting menu that combined locally sourced savoury ingredients with perfectly matched wines chosen by sommelier James Cerda. Cerda said he and the chefs constantly tweak their wine selections as the menu evolves.
Before we headed back to Canada, we stopped in Lodi ( near Sacramento, it’s billed as the Zinfandel capital of the world) enjoying an overnight and a great meal at Wine and Roses. Next evening we stayed at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, directly across the water from the main runway of the busy San Francisco International Airport. It was an ideal location and a quick hop to the Air Canada counter and our flight home. Needless to say, our checked luggage contained a few bottles of very nice wine.