Today was the day we were looking forward to the most. It did not disappoint!
Quail and Condor was another recommendation from our Air BnB host. She said a few different times that we should not leave without trying their pastries – the best croissants and pastries outside of Paris. The store front is nothing spectacular – in fact it looks like a hole in the wall but once inside everything looks and smells amazing. We had a hard time choosing but decided we would come back every morning. Today we chose an almond croissant and a ham & Gruyère cheese croissant. Both were delicious, but I am going to dream about the almond croissant! (100x better than Trung bakery in St. Paul and theirs is pretty good!) Now I don’t know if I should order that again tomorrow or try something new.
Our 1st tasting of the day was at Kenwood. We belong to their wine club and were looking to try some different wines to customize our shipments. One of our all time favorites was their 2018 Barn Chardonnay. One of the wines we tried was the 2019 Barn Chardonnay. It was excellent but not quite as good as the 2018. Turns out they had free shipping on wine purchased during a tasting. Also turns out they found the last remaining 7 bottles of 2018 Barn Chardonnay. Guess who’s getting a shipment of Kenwood!
We’ve been wanting to go to Ledson since we joined their Wine Club years ago. It was spectacular! We had our tasting in a private outdoor patio overlooking the vineyard and mountains. The weather was perfect – sunny and 78 degrees. Ryan, our host, was fun and informative and joined us in drinking most of the wine we sampled. He looked over the wines we’ve ordered in the past and created a tasting based on what he thought our palate was. He created the perfect tasting. We loved almost everything. We were even able to try some wines not normally available (I know he probably says that to everyone!) However, yesterday, Steve Ledson had a tasting for some VIPs so he opened some special wines that we were also able to try because they were left over. Since Jon and I shared, we tried 11 different wines. We did not think we liked their whites but the ones Ryan chose for us were yummy. And as always their reds are amazing. There is also a Ledson shipment in our future including some of the VIP wine we tried.
We ended the evening at Russian River Brewing – thank you Jason and Erin! It had a wonderful outdoor patio and yummy food. We had charcuterie boards for the past 2 days so it was great to have some “real” food.
Halfway Round the Planet, Part 2 