"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."
The signs advertising 'free tasting room' increased to 3 per mile as we wound our way through the beautiful rolling landscape of the Sonoma valley past Calistoga along the Russian river and onto Healdsburg.
There were vines everywhere. They looked in great shape for this time of the year. All the associated Wineries offered free tasting hospitality. They welcomed the middle aged and the ancient. Youngsters were, of course, frowned upon. So our stays were short and sweet, one free glass each, buy the obligatory bottle and move on.
We had chosen to take this slow three hour drive North from the city because San Francisco had lived up to Mr Twain's words. The Peninsular and its micro climate had overdosed on Fog and Mist for over 3 weeks and the quotation had been worked overtime, uttered during every bit of hospitality we had received. We had to find some sunshine before we leave, after all California is suppose to have an abundant supply. Fortunately we had acquired four promotional vouchers which offered free access to the Francis Ford Coppola Winery, FFCW. Hence our drive up North.
The FFCW location would have made an ideal setting for a Miss World competition. The reddish brown wooden Winery building formed three sides of a square with a T-shaped swimming pool plus loungers covering the centre. The swimming pool was further decorated with various mis-shapes and sizes, from 3 year old kids, to 7 stone rakes and on upwards to 200 kilo mammoths. Yes, this was a real blue eyed blond America showplace, where anything goes, where white bellies hang over large pants, where every bikini design ever made was under sized and where an occasional pregnant tattooed individual would walk by. Yes, this was definitely something else. And Oh! you could count on one hand the number of yellow, black, brown and redskins on one hand.
Old and young draped over their loungers, sat under the shades or simply stood around the pool in the water,Hollywood style, with a glass in their hand. Everyone had a glass or rather a plastic shaped wine goblet. The wine carafe's were also plastic. The place wasn't crowded by any means but there were around 500 people in and around the facility.
I retired to the changing area, behind the boule area. Yes, there were people playing boule and yes I didn't hear a French word spoken. (I subsequently learnt that the actual game being played is called Bocce, a variant of Boule, which was brought to the US by Italian migrants.) Isn't it marvelous how you learn about these things.
Suitably clad I was soon larking about with the youngsters in the pool and when they tired I somehow managed a very slow 10 lengths. It was glorious. The sun does shine in California.
I was climbing up the pool steps when a trilby wearing individual, sitting glass in hand with her toes in the water, caught my attention.
"I heard you talk to the Grand-kids. With an accent like that you must be from the North of England, I'm from Bolton," she said.
I wiped the water out of my eyes and smiled.
"Well I never. I wouldn't have thought that I would meet a Wanderer here."
My response fell on stoney ground so I offered, "Yeah I'm from Chesterfield. You did well to swap Lancashire for this place. How did you do it?"
Everybody has an interesting tale to tell and Mary's was definitely different. We shared our histories and babbled on about the joys of being in the US particularly being in California and how "odd balls" like ourselves could come to be chewing the fat in such resplendent surroundings. We ended our brief encounter with "see you back there sometime" followed by a very American "high five."
She hadn't been back to the UK in over 20 years so it is most unlikely she will bother in the next 20.
Snack time, at the prevailing prices it was all we could afford. Also I noticed that the FFCW wine tasting experience was priced at 18 $ per person. So I settled for an Arnold Palmer, i.e. elder flower wine with a lemon squeeze, at 3 $ per large tumbler. Well, I suppose Mr. Coppola has to cover his outgoings and pay Mr.Palmer royalties for the use of his name.
After snacking and having fully recovered from my swimming exertions we entertained ourselves with a stroll through the Winery building, half of which is available only to paying visitors. The cheap section, our half, proved to be very interesting. It was filled with a restaurant, several bars, six or so selling counters and with all sorts of memorabilia from the films that had made Coppola famous. Amongst all the Chardonnay and white wine there were display cabinets showing the scenes, the actors and the props from his most famous films, the "Godfather" series. and "Apocalypse Now."
The latter received much attention with a description of the triumph Coppola made out of the castrophe that plagued the making of the film. Apparently it took 3 years to complete. Initially a Phillipino typhoon wrecked all the props, then the staff became addicted and were spaced out. The main actors, Hopper, Steen etc. were continuously troublesome. With method actor Brando, apparently needing to take 6 months off to read and understand the implications of Conrad's "Edge of Darkness" so he could best fulfill his role in the film. Coppola financed all of this and of course his rewards from the success of the film left him able to open this Winery.
I strolled on past a cabinet full of Oscars and one Golden Globe. All pretty casual objects really when viewed against the background of bottles of red and white wine on sale. Further on I noticed a red Tucker Motor Car holding pride of place at the end of the building. It was a throwback to the twenties style of Al Capone but I couldn't find any reason for it being there. Well perhaps by this time my attention span was on the wane. It was time to pack our things and head out.
Ten minutes later we had dropped into position joining the three lane, 65 mph, steady procession back along Interstate 101 to the Golden Gate Bridge and home.
HIB
