December 3-4, 2016 Calistoga, California

65 degrees and sunny. Christmas celebrations in Calistoga started today.

John got up and had breakfast with Santa at the Christmas faire. Then when I got up I went to see the craft fair-with Santa. Good start to the Christmas celebration in Calistoga. We walked to the farmers market and took the horse and buggy back to the fairgrounds where the bus is.  We saw the Chardonnay Cleaners in downtown. Where else but wine country would have a cleaners named after a wine.? When we went back I went for a bike ride on the Vine trail- a bike trail through town.

We have to love Calistoga- there is a bar named after each of us. Susie’s and Johnny’s.  The vineyards on my bike ride had mustard flowers blooming in between the rows.

I passed this pond with an egret and a grebe swimming by. There were also hooded mergansers.  Late evening light on the vines at Sterling  Vineyards.

Ivy on a fence, fall oak leaves with lichen, fall yellow tree and red grape vines. The highlight of the day was the Lighted Tractor parade this evening. It started with a couple fire engines with lights and sirens going off.  Followed by many lighted work and farm vehicles and floats. The bottom left was a HUGE decorated bucket loader. Two of the lighted tractors. All the vehicles were blowing their horns. Very exciting parade.

The most exciting one was this one with three hot air ballon baskets lighting their flames down main street. Today we toured the Chateau Montelena winery. It is - to quote the brochure- a stone castle carved into a hillside overlooking a Chinese garden and lake, and vineyards reaching out to the base of  Mt St Helena.  The castle was built in 1882. 

The Castle at Chateau Montelena. It is very impressive. There is a bride getting photographed in front of it. While waiting our turn to taste John was teasing the coy into thinking his finger was food. It was kind of hazy so the photos don’t do it justice.

John tasting a $165 a bottle cabernet. Their wines were expensive but this is the first time I can say I really could taste a difference from other wine. They were really good, and we were tasting the cheap stuff-current release tasting- which was $27 each to taste 5 wines. You had to pay more to taste the good stuff. After tasting we went to Jade lake and the Chinese gardens. John is entering one of the the crooked walkways to an island. The foot bridges were built crooked to honor Chinese Legend, which says that evil spirits can only travel over water in straight lines.

Crooked foot bridge. John in front of the building on one of the islands. They are technically closed to the general public and reserved for wine club members. But there were no club members there today.

Calla lily, swan and the 1st place 1976 Paris tasting. In 1976 there was a blind tasting in Paris between Napa wines  and French wines, judged by the best wine judges in France. This Chardonnay won over the french wines and put California wine country on the map. There is a movie written about this winery and the Paris tasting called ‘Bottle Shock.’ One of the other crooked bridges and island. This one had another couple being photographed on it, so we didn’t go to the island.

Fall leaves over water, a swan and some red berries. After we got back the sun came out and I went on a long bike ride. My bike on the drive way to Sterling winery. It is wonderful to ride in shorts in the sun and be warm. The colors were lovely. We visited Sterling winery last time we were here. You take a gondola up to the huge estate on top of the hill and take a self guided tour through the winery, beautiful building, gardens, fountains etc and taste lots of wines in different spots. Pretty place, fun tour, but the wines kind of tasted the same to us. $30 each for that tour. We did taste some of the more expensive wines there, but they tasted the same also.

Sycamore seeds, and seen on the board at Sterling Winery the Grape Resources Emergency First Responce Actions and some Grape Resources AM warmup exercies-in Spanish. Some fall colors with a grill at Sterling. There was another Country coach in the campground this weekend. You rarely see them on the road. There are not that many and they quit making them in 2010. We met the people and toured their coach, they toured ours. It is a 1996 and very fancy in mint condition.

Clouds before sunset. I missed the actual sunset visiting with the other Country Coach owners. I bet it was good.