My New York neighbour (couple of times removed), Pierre, dropped by last weekend; part of his tour of the US. He's heading back to Paris to start work there.
It was a lot of fun to hang out with Pierre, and it was also reason to carry on my San Francisco tradition of alcoholic weekends by going with him, Stefanie and her friend Colette to the wine region north of San Francisco - the Napa and Sonoma valleys. San Francisco reminds me in many ways of Cape Town, so I went to the wine region
expecting Stellenbosch and Paarl - and I got both more and less than I expected. The Napa Valley has a lot of wine, but it has a lot more too: more Harley-Davidsons, more ultra-chic villages, more expensive restaurants. Wow. We ended up in
Clos Pegase at the end of the valley. This is a "temple to wine" designed by "renowned Princeton architect Michael Graves"; its got sculptures by Henry Moore and Jean Dubuffet. And man, its ugly. The art is all over the place, some of it is really kitsch, the building is an oversized, hulking edifice which radiates discomfort. But the wine was good.
It was also good in the Sonoma Valley, where they let you buy a bottle of wine and bring your own picnic. Sonoma is a lot more relaxed than Napa, and has a homey feeling about it. We spent more time there, ending up the day in the giant square in Sonoma town, where the short-lived Californian
Bear Flag Republic was declared in 1846 when it was wrenched from Mexico's power. On this Sunday afternoon, war and power struggles seemed very distant, and the townspeople were dancing to a bluegrass band with a washboard-strumming singer in the square.
It was a lot of fun to hang out with Pierre, and it was also reason to carry on my San Francisco tradition of alcoholic weekends by going with him, Stefanie and her friend Colette to the wine region north of San Francisco - the Napa and Sonoma valleys. San Francisco reminds me in many ways of Cape Town, so I went to the wine region 
expecting Stellenbosch and Paarl - and I got both more and less than I expected. The Napa Valley has a lot of wine, but it has a lot more too: more Harley-Davidsons, more ultra-chic villages, more expensive restaurants. Wow. We ended up in Clos Pegase at the end of the valley. This is a "temple to wine" designed by "renowned Princeton architect Michael Graves"; its got sculptures by Henry Moore and Jean Dubuffet. And man, its ugly. The art is all over the place, some of it is really kitsch, the building is an oversized, hulking edifice which radiates discomfort. But the wine was good.
It was also good in the Sonoma Valley, where they let you buy a bottle of wine and bring your own picnic. Sonoma is a lot more relaxed than Napa, and has a homey feeling about it. We spent more time there, ending up the day in the giant square in Sonoma town, where the short-lived Californian Bear Flag Republic was declared in 1846 when it was wrenched from Mexico's power. On this Sunday afternoon, war and power struggles seemed very distant, and the townspeople were dancing to a bluegrass band with a washboard-strumming singer in the square.
