Silicon Valley Old Italian Trifecta!

This month’s HEAD Trip takes on three “oldests” in all of Santa Clara County; winery, restaurant and bar. Let’s start with wine.

Padres at Mission Santa Clara planted Santa Clara Valley’s first vineyard in 1798. Fifty-one years later, the California Gold Rush brought French and Italian immigrants to seek their fortune. Many found it, not in gold but in wine.

The state’s first commercial winery, the Almaden Winery was founded in 1852. This original winery has faded from the scene and what remains are now a community park and single family homes. Other wineries including Buena Vista (1857), Gundlach Bundschu (1858) and Inglenook (1879) still remain.

Across the region, immigrant winemakers discovered California’s rich soil and Mediterranean climate and vineyards were planted from coastal valleys to the Sierra Foothills.

Two such immigrants moved to Santa Clara County in 1877. Secondo and Vincenso Picchetti were some of the first settlers along Monte Bello Ridge (Beautiful Mountain) overlooking Cupertino. Not only did they settle in the hills above “The Valley of Hearts Delight”, they were some of the first to plant grapes. The area soon become one of Santa Clara County’s most important wine making areas.

The Picchetti brothers bought 160 acres for $1,500. They grew their ranch to 500 acres by 1904. Taking advantage of the climate and soil, the first grapes the brothers planted were  Zinfandel, Carignane and Petite Sirah. This region is now part of the Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation.

In the early days, they sold grapes to local wineries, but in 1896 they started making their own wine. Picchetti became the 148^th licensed winery in the U.S.

In 1904, the winery and ranch passed to Vencenzo's sons, Antone and John. The family continued commercial winemaking until 1963. After that the family continued on a small scale.

In 1976, the ranch and winery were sold to the Midpeninsula Regional Space District. In 1998, Leslie Pantling took over the winery. Today Picchetti produces around 9,000 cases of tasty wine each year. Grapes are still harvested from three acres of 110 year old Zinfandel vines that allow the dream of two Italian immigrants to continue.

The oldest restaurant in San Jose is Wing’s Chinese in Japantown. Now you may be asking, “Why are we not going to Wings?” Well, on our pre-HEAD Scouting, Liz and I, your Co-Grand Poo-Bahs, ate at Wings. Old yes, good? Not so much. Besides, Picchetti is Italian so why not eat Italian at San Jose’s oldest Italian restaurant?

The original Original Joe’s was opened in San Francisco back in 1937 by business partners, Lou Rocca and Tony "Ante" Rodin (It’s still owned and managed by Rodin's grandchildren). The restaurant initially consisted of 14 bar stools and a sawdust-covered floor. Business grew and soon a full dining room was added. But enough about San Francisco.

By 1956, Lou Rocca decided to open another Original Joe’s. His idea was to go into business with his son. San Jose was booming so it seemed like a good choice. Lou wanted to bring an authentic San Francisco-style Italian restaurant to the South Bay. A clothing store at the corner of First and San Carlos had just closed and it seemed like the perfect location. Lou and his son Lou soon opened their Original Joe’s. Their goal was to serve traditional home-style Italian-American cuisine. To add San Francisco touches, Lou and Lou even imported French bread from San Francisco by Greyhound bus everyday for the first two years of operation.

Now Original Joe’s may not have been the very first Italian restaurant in the county, but today it is the oldest!

Old wine, old restaurants, how about old bars? Let’s go back to 1933,Prohibition is over and a thirsty San Jose cries out for refreshment. Enter Cinebar. Just a block away from San Jose State University between Third and Fourth on San Fernando. True to its dive bar roots, it is open every possible legal hour - 6am to 2am. Dark, dank and equipped with a pool table, what better place to finish our adventure?

So it’s not Italian, Ira drank there and he’s Italian (2^nd generation on his mother’s side, plus he looks really Italian…) Join us! Drink with us! Eat with us! Be hungover with us the next day! It’ll be fun!!!

Join the HEAD Adventure. On Saturday, May 30, meet at the Picchetti Winery (13100 Montebello Rd., Cupertino) at 2pm. Please RSVP.

ON THE TRAIL OF THE MALTESE FALCON

San Francisco has always been a place of both economic and social innovation. Included on the long list of the city’s gifts to the world is the hardboiled, Noir detective story. This genre lives on today in books, movies and on television. Did you see “Bosch” on Amazon?

We can all thank one man, Dashiell Hammett for starting this style and sharing it with us. Samuel Dashiell Hammett was born in Maryland in 1894. He passed in 1961 in New York City. In between there’s San Francisco.

Following World War I, Hammett worked for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. It was his job with Pinkerton that brought him to San Francisco in June of 1921. Within a year he decided it was time for a career change. He wanted to be a writer so he took a typing class and was off and running. His stories and novels, mostly written in San Francisco, made him the pioneer of a new American-style of crime and murder fiction.

Hammett’s stay in San Francisco was both short and productive. He moved to Los Angeles in October 1929 after just 8 years. During that time he lived in seven different apartments. His most famous novels The Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon were born in the City by the Bay. After Hammett quit Pinkerton he supported himself by writing advertising copy for Samuels Jewelers and short stories for “The Black Mask” magazine. From these we were give such wonderful characters as The Continental Op, Nick and Nora Charles and, of course, Sam Spade.

Part of Hammett’s street cred is the fact that he was the first American mystery writer who had been a real detective. Many cases from his Pinkerton days acted as fuel for his imagination and the origin of his Falcon characters. Let’s start with Sam Spade.  The detective was a brand new character who first appeared in The Maltese Falcon.  

Some years after the book was published, Hammett said, “Spade has no original. He is a dream man in the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached. For your private detective does not — or did not ten years ago when he was my colleague — want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes manner; he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander or client.”

And what about the name? Well, Hammett’s first name was Samuel, Sam to his wife and family. The last name comes from a fellow Pinkerton Detective, Spayde, that Hammett worked with during his gumshoe days.

Casper Gutman, the fat man, started as a real-life suspected German spy Hammett wasassigned to follow around Washington, D.C. In his report, Hammett said that he “was not a secret agent but the single most boring suspect he ever had to tail.”

Perfumed Joel Cairo comes out of a case Hammett worked in the southern Washington town of Pasco. He was said to be “an oily little guy” arrested for check forgery.

Sam Spade’s loyal secretary with keen women’s intuition, Effie Perrine, started as a woman Hammett met in San Diego. She tried to talk him into becoming her partner in a drug smuggling business.  

Dispatched by Pinkerton to Stockton to investigate a gas station robbery, Hammett took up the case of the “Midget Bandit”. After the robbery, the gas station owner described the criminal “a runt”. The local papers took this and ran with it and dubbed the robber with his tiny moniker. The thief had escaped safely to Los Angeles but became so obsessed with his description in numerous newspaper articles that he returned to Stockton to prove the gas station owner wrong. Hammett saw him on the street and grabbed him up. This criminal with a chip on his shoulder became Casper Gutman’s gunsel, Wilmer Cook.

To celebrate the first Noir detective, the next HEAD Trip is scheduled for Saturday, February 28. We’ll meet at the Starbucks at 52 California Street. It’s across from the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Gather there at 12:30pm. Yes, I know it’s not a bar but don’t worry. We’ll find one along the way.

Wear your walking shoes. The whole trek will be around five miles with a hill or two. It’s San Francisco after all. Our adventure will include a cable car ride so bring $6 cash or your Clipper Card.

We’ll stop for a late lunch at John’s Grill. This city eatery opened in 1908 and has fully embraced its Falcon heritage. In the book, Sam Spade “…went into John’s Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes…” They even have one of the movie Falcons on display. Check out their menu at http://johnsgrill.com/ .

We’re going to make lunch reservations, so please RSVP to your HEAD Planning Team asap!

See you on Saturday!

SANTACON RECAP

Twenty years ago it all began and for the last four years SantaCon has been a H.E.A.D. tradition. With talk of a large demonstration focusing on Market Street and Union Square, the H.E.A.D. advance team (Liz and I) headed straight for North Beach. We parked across the street from a police station (seemed like a good idea) and moved off to grab some bar stools at San Francisco’s 2^nd oldest bar, the Saloon.

We arrived just after 11am and to our surprise, it was locked up tight. It seems the Saloon doesn’t open until noon – a respectable hour but a little late for a world-class dive bar. Didn’t we do the same thing last year?

Quick change of plans and a flurry of text messages found us ordering a round at Gino and Carlo. This place is a North Beach classic. It’s family-owned, opened in 1942 and, as they say, Italian and proud of it!

They’ve also been voted the best place to watch a Giants’ game when they’re on the road. We can

attest to this honor. Liz and I once donned all of our Giants’ game gear (you’ve seen pictures), took an early BART train and arrived at 9:30am just in time for the first pitch as the Giants took on the Marlins in Florida. Morning baseball and Bloody Marys in a dive bar do go well together (just sayin’).

Gino and Carlo opens at 6am so we had no problem ordering our first round and the H.E.A.D. trip was off to a good start.

Last summer, while attending the Giants’ WineFest at AT&T Park, we learned a very valuable lesson. Eat before you drink. Simple and straightforward it’s a rule to live by.

Having learned our lesson well, I went next store to Golden Boy Pizza. A true hole-in-the-wall that pumps out amazing Sicilian-style pizza. The squares, not slices, are huge. Soon I was back in Gino and Carlo with a feast of vegetarian pizza to go with my Spaten (on draft).

Over the next little while, other H.E.A.D. Trippers arrived; Jim, Denise, Tory, Cricket, Emily (of Bloody Mary fame), Bradley and Amy. Everyone took turns visiting Golden Boy for Sicilian sustenance. We ate and drank. Did I mention that Gino and Carlo has 12 tasty beers on tap?

Fortified and refreshed we moved out onto Green Street and right into a sea of red and white. Santas here. Santas there. Santas everywhere. It is one of the coolest features of SantaCon to see city streets choked with hundreds, no thousands of happy revelers dressed like old St. Nick. Granted there are a few reindeer, gingerbread cookies and Christmas trees thrown in for good measure. There’s even a dreidel to two. Mrs. Claus is always well represented.

Up Green Street, a quick left on Grant Avenue (not the Chinatown part) and there we were at the now open Saloon. There was a Harley parked outside. It was the bartender’s. This place is all class. Need proof? PBR on tap. Need I say more?

After our whistles were re-wetted it was time for some wandering. Back to Columbus Avenue. Columbus is one of only 4 major diagonal streets in San Francisco. The street was built between 1873 and 1874. It was designed to provide a less-hilly connection to North Beach for horse teams pulling heavy loads up from Market Street. It was originally called Montgomery Street but renamed in 1909.

Out on the street we joined the masses of Santas. At the corner of Vallejo we wandered into the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi. Who knew? We’d been past that corner many, many time and never noticed this little  oasis of peace, quiet, serenity, and refreshment to the thirsty spirit. It was amazing. A tiny recreation of St. Francis’ chapel in Italy.

The shrine is built within the walls of the original Saint Francis of Assisi Church. Saint Francis was canonized in 1228 and in June 1849, the Saint Francis Parish was established in San Francisco. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the interior of the church but the outside brick walls together with its badly scorched towers, remained entirely intact.

Next time you’re passing by, stop in. You’ll be glad you did.

A little more strolling with our Santa brethren took us to Stella Pastry, home of Sacripantina.

Discovered on the H.E.A.D. Italian Cookie Walk, this “sacred little bread” has become a North Beach must taste. Stella has been making Sacripantina for more than 40 years. It’s won awards and been the centerpiece at numerous weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and bar mitzvahs.

For those who’ve never had the pleasure (and I do mean pleasure), Sacripantina is a multilayered vanilla sponge cake filled with zabaione (a delicate egg yolk and butter custard). Liberal amounts of marsala and sherry wine soak the sponge. Add some cream and rum and there you are, a culinary organism.

Sweet tooth satisfied, our group was craving coffee. A little backtracking brought us to Café Trieste, the first Espresso coffee house on the West Coast. Since 1956 they’ve been brewing coffee for poets, writers, composers, artists and now H.E.A.D. Trippers. A little coffee, a little opera and some wonderful memories (especially for Jim).

Enough coffee. It was time for another beer! Things were getting pretty crowded so we decided to head down to Mr. Bing’s. As we passed Vesuvio Café, Jack Kerouac Alley was filled with dancing Santas and a Santa marching brass band. We joined the fun.

Mr. Bing’s was wall-to-wall Santas. Really, no room at the inn (or the bar). After a brief discussion, we decided Kell’s Irish might be far enough off the SantaCon Trail to allow us access. Boy were we wrong! There was a half block line waiting to get in. Denied!

Chinatown. There must be bars in Chinatown. Across Columbus, up Jackson and there it was, Red’s Place just a half block short of Grant Avenue. Not really Chinese but a classic dive. It was here that a drunk Santa was convinced that I was Tony Bennett. He was so sure that he started introducing me to his friends as “Mr. Bennett, the guy who sings that cable car song.” There was also a reindeer who spent 30 minutes fixing her antlers in the bar’s mirror. Dasher? Dancer? Comet? No, I think she was Plastered.

As the sun set, our merry band scattered as members headed home. The last four of us ducked into the Comstock for a snack and a drink. The food was pretty good. Santa and Ms. Claus were doing the He-She Dance of Love at the bar and our waiter shared an odd story about free bread costing $18,000 a year. Needless to say, there wasn’t any free bread.

Another SantaCon is in the books. Mark your calendar for the second Saturday in December 2015. We’ll be back.

Want to see more SantaCon photos? Check out Tory’s album. She’s the official H.E.A.D. Photographer.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/toryjilbert/sets/72157649362425249/

It's beginning to look a lot like SantaCon!

Back in 2011, the H.E.A.D. Society stumbled upon SantaCon while exploring North Beach on the, now famous, Italian Cookie Walk. It started as serendipity but since then this mass gathering of people dressed like Santa Claus has become an annual H.E.A.D. holiday tradition.

Imagine an army of Santas, maybe 10,000 or more, unleashed on the streets of San Francisco. Now, as you know, the H.E.A.D. Society explores the food and drink history of Northern California and SantaCon is totally home-grown. Back in 1974, members of a SF social club turned a Danish political demonstration against the commercialization of Christmas into a flash mob event filled with holiday cheer.

SantaCon is a non-political, purely surreal event. It combines bawdy and harmless behavior (dressing like Santa and drinking) with the singing of carols, and the giving of small gifts to strangers. Put on your Santa suit and join our happy band of merry pranksters. It’s worldwide holiday sensation.

This year's SantaCon H.E.A.D. Trip is scheduled for Saturday, December 13th. The fun starts at Lefty O’Doul’s just off Union Square (333 Geary Street). We’ll gather there and enjoy some “holiday cheer”. Once "cheered up", we’ll cross Union Square and work our way through Chinatown, over the hill and into North Beach – ground zero for our SantaCon celebration. Along the way we’ll be stopping for lunch - last year it was Chinese and two years ago we ate pizza.

Remember to bring a new, unwrapped toy to donate to the SFFD toy drive. Don’t cheap out. You're Santa after all so bring something good. You’ll make a hunky firefighter smile! Also, bring candy to pass out along the way.

Seeking Bloody Mary

SEEKING BLOODY MARY

The quest to find San Francisco’s best Bloody Mary began as many H.E.A.D. Society adventures do, with a question. While just about all of San Francisco’s 665 bars can make you a Bloody Mary; some rise above the rest and a few are masters of this tasty creation. But how to find the best? Even dedicated H.E.A.D. Trippers would find it difficult to hit all of the possible bars.

Enter the internet! Your crack H.E.A.D. Research Team scoured cyberspace looking for any article, blog, news item or list ranking San Francisco’s best Bloody Mary bars. Turns out there are quite a few. The data was compiled, cross-referenced and tallied. Looking for bars that showed up more than the rest, three rose to the top, the Elixir, Thieves Tavern and Zeitgeist. As luck would have it they’re all in the Mission District and just blocks apart.

The plan was simple; eat, drink, drink, drink and crown a winner. For food and rendezvous, we chose the Little Star Pizza. It was both well Yelped and centrally located. To fortify ourselves, we started with pizza, salad and a warm-up brew. Soon two new H.E.A.D. Rushers joined us. Emily and Toby were on their inaugural trip. Coveted membership cards were issued and we set off to our first stop, the Elixir.

The Elixir is a wonderful place. It is San Francisco’s second oldest bar, dating back to 1858. Though it’s had a number of names and owners, there has only ever been one bar at the corner of Guerrero and 16^th Streets. We sallied up to the bar, introduced ourselves and told the bartender of our quest. He acknowledged that we’d come to the right place and recommended that our Bloody Marys be made with Tito’s Vodka. Tito’s is distilled six times in small pot stills (very cool) in Texas’ oldest licensed distillery (very historic).

We ordered and the bartender swung into action. Next thing we knew, 4 beautiful, tall glasses stood before us. Now in most bars, the bartender adds the garnish for you – maybe an olive or two and a stalk of celery. Not at the Elixir. The drinks come unadulterated, garnish-free because the Elixir has a special Bloody Mary garnish bar. That’s right, you self-garnish. The bar has more than a dozen hot sauces, celery, pickle spears, olives, pickled green beans and asparagus. There’s even a shaker so you can rim your own glass with one of three choices – sea salt, beef bullion, and Old Bay seasoning.

By the time we returned to our table my drink looked like it had sprouted a salad. The first sip revealed spice and a hint of heat. Refreshing and a great place to start. One down, two to go.

A short walk down the street and we found ourselves at the all black storefront of Thieves Tavern. This place has “dive bar” written all over it.

It took our eyes several minutes to adjust to the darkened interior. We ordered a round and the bartender was hard at work. He paused to apologize because they’d run out of bacon. To make up for it he took a dollar of the price. No garnish bar but they came with a healthy spear of pickle, olive, celery and marinated carrots.

We sipped our drinks in the darkness. They were good, really good. Not nearly the spice of the Elixir but nice, light, and refreshing. Two down. One to go.

Another couple of blocks and we entered Zeitgeist. No sign, just a Playboy bunny silhouette painted on the door. Well almost the classic Playboy bunny symbol but the head is a skull with those famous bunny ears. This is a special place. Imagine if a biker bar and a German beer garden had sex.  Zeitgeist would be their love child. The bar is big, busy and crowded, but just out back is a huge garden area with long wooden tables and benches. Look up and there’s the Central Freeway and a billboard. The Bloody Marys here were good, tasty and refreshing.

Liz found us a table in the bier garden. We finished our drinks, ordered some beers and got down to business. We voted for San Francisco’s best Bloody Mary. And the winner is…….(drum roll please)………a tie. What? That’s right we ended in a dead heat between the Elixir and Thieves Tavern. A photo finish and the votes were split evenly.

What’s a H.E.A.D. Society to do? Only one possible solution, a Mary Off. Head-to-head between Thieves Tavern and the Elixir. History vs Dive. Who will win? Will they have bacon this time? Stay tuned, sometime in 2014 it’ll be time to settle this epic cocktail battle and we’ll need your help. An official H.E.A.D. Society winner’s plaque will be awarded.

My turn! Well, the best two things about the day were Toby and Emily!!!! They are the H.E.A.D. Society’s newest, shiniest members. I think in the right light they might even sparkle… Anyway, they’re very cute and you’re all gonna LOVE them. Even if they did like a different Bloody Mary than Ira and I did.

Elixir was fantastic! They invite you to make your own Bloody Mary and when you decline, they’re so sweet, they make one for you! Then they show you to the garnish bar which even has a metal cup to pour your drink in if you want to rim your glass (which kinda sounds dirty but it’s not).

Ho – lee crap! That Thieves Tavern was a dive!!! The doors were black, the windows were black, the floors were black, and, oh yeah, they were all sticky, too. They made a good Bloody Mary, though, and I really want to experience the bacon garnish. But my favorite was the Elixir’s. That garnish bar rules!

Zeitgeist is a cool place, tucked up under the freeway. Unremarkable Bloody M, but the beer was good, the crowd was friendly, and…Under the Freeway! Didn’t eat and food there, but we have before and it was burger-y. The coolest thing about the place is the long tables in the beer garden. It’s the kind of place you could sit in and order beer after beer and talk for hours…Hey sounds like a H.E.A.D. trip!

Santa Con this Saturday! Bustin’ out the red suit and the black booties! See you then!

HEAD Rush: Urban Hiking in Search of the Best Bloody Mary

The origin of the Bloody Mary is as murky as tomato juice. It was created in 1921 or 1926 by Fernand “Pete” Petiot at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. Harry’s was a famous ex-pat watering hole frequented by Ernest Hemmingway and other luminaries of the era. Originally the drink was simply equal parts vodka and tomato juice.

But Petiot wasn’t satisfied with his simple two-part cocktail. Soon he was starting with four dashes of salt, two dashes each of black and cayenne pepper, and a splash of Worcestershire sauce in the bottom of his cocktail shaker. Next he’d add lemon juice and cracked ice. This was followed by the vodka and tomato juice - two ounces each. Once assembled, he would shake, strain, and pour.

This new concoction became a popular morning, early afternoon or brunch refresher. Some people even proclaimed the drink as a "hair of the dog" hangover cure. Cure? Maybe not, but the alcohol might just numb some of your discomfort.

 In 1934, the drink crossed the Atlantic and Petiot first served it at the King Cole Bar in Manhattan’s St. Regis Hotel. To suit American sensibilities, it was temporarily renamed the Red Snapper. The first printed reference to the drink came in 1939 when Lucius Beebe mentioned it in his syndicated gossip column “This New York” in the New York Herald Tribune.

Why Bloody Mary? Here again things are murky. It may have been named for actress Mary Pickford. It may have been named by one of Harry’s patrons from Chicago for a girl he missed back home. It may have been named for Mary, a waitress, at Chicago’s Bucket of Blood Saloon. Take your pick.

As the drink spread across the country, Petiot’s recipe changed and evolved as bartenders added their own inspiration and ingredients including  horseradish, celery salt, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, beef consomme or even bouillon.  The drink is usually served in a tall glass over ice with a celery stalk garnish.

To prepare for a HEAD Rush, your crack research team surfed the interweb seeking every possible “Best Blood Mary in San Francisco” list, article or blog. There turns out to be a lot of them – too many booze hounds with a computer and a lot of time on their hands. Anyway, the data was compiled, numbers crunched and cross-checked. Four bars came up over and over again.

As luck, or fate, would have it the bars (The Elixir, Thieves Tavern, 500 Club and Zeitgist) are all within 6/10ths of a mile of each other.

Our plan is to eat and visit the top three Bloody Mary bars on Saturday, November 23, 2013. From the 16^th & Mission BART station, walk 2½ blocks to Little Star Pizza (400 Valencia St.). to meet at 1:00pm at for lunch.

From pizza we plan to wander over to the Elixir - 3^rd oldest bar in San Francisco (3200 16^th St. at Guerrero St. This place had a special garnish bar for your Bloody Mary enjoyment. From the Elixir it’s only a short two blocks down Guerrero Street to the Thieves Tavern (496 14^th St.). In true dive bar style, this place is “cash only”.

Two down, one to go. We’ll make our way a couple more blocks over to Zeitgeist (199 Valencia St.). This place is a pure form kind of place. Imagine a dive bar crossed with a beer garden and you’ll be pretty close. Again, it’s cash only.

Join us and help us crown San Francisco’s best Bloody Mary!

LIVERMORE WINE IS MIGHTY FINE!

The H.E.A.D. Society’s latest adventure explored the Livermore Valley’s wine history. Many people think of the Napa Valley when talking about California’s wine heritage but Livermore has quite a story to tell too. Spanish missionaries from nearby Mission San Jose planted the first vines in the valley during the 1760s. The area’s soil and climate, warm days and cool nights, attracted pioneer vintners beginning in the 1840s.

Forty years later, the valley entered a new era of wine making when Wente, Concannon and Cresta Blanca all got their start. It was Livermore, not the Napa Valley, that brought California wine to the world’s attention. In the 1880s, French wine dominated the American (and California) market. The best restaurants in San Francisco featured French imports on their wine lists. Some even labeled local vintages as “French” to help them sell.

Journalist Charles Wetmore was a big fan of California, especially Livermore, wines. He championed local

wine in dozens of newspaper articles and talked about the virtues of drinking locally at every occasion. Perhaps he was one of the first wine locavores (or as Liz says, “locaholics”). When the state legislature decided to create a Viticultural Commission, Wetmore was picked as the first chairman.

Wetmore brought cuttings of Semillion, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscadelle and Cabernet Sauvignon back from France and used them to start his own winery in the Livermore Valley, Cresta Blanca. In 1889, his efforts paid off when two of his wines were awarded gold medals at the Paris International Exposition. His wine beat France’s best and put California on the world’s wine map.

On a recent bright Saturday morning, eleven H.E.A.D. trippers (including 3 new members) loaded into our chariot (actually a Hummer stretch limo) and headed east over the golden hills. Our first stop was the Wente Vineyards’ tasting room on Tesla Road. There’s no better place to start a Livermore wine exploration. Wente is the oldest continuously operating family-owned winery in the United States. It was founded in 1883 by German immigrant C. H. Wente. After Wente arrived in the Golden State, he worked for Charles Krug in Napa before settling in Livermore. Wente brought Chardonnay grapes to California in 1912 and was first to bottle Sauvignon Blanc as a distinct variety. During Prohibition, the winery stayed in business by making sacramental wine (lots and lots of sacramental wine).

The tasting room is on the original 1883 property so we were awash in both history and wine. Thanks to Harald and Jeneva, who are Wente Wine Club members, we were ushered into the exclusive Nth Degree Lounge. In a beautiful outdoor setting our tasting began in earnest. No, I’m not counting the champagne in the limo. We were totally pampered as we worked our way through the “enhanced” flight. I’ve got to say, they’re not stingy with pours in the lounge.

Our next stop was right across the courtyard at Tamas Estates. This winery specializes in Italian-style wines. These fruit forward varieties were real crowd pleasers. Between all of us we ended up sharing three different flights; bright whites, fruity reds and a port that knocked some socks off. Has anybody seen my socks?

By now we needed some lunch. Our driver maneuvered our boat of a limo into downtown Livermore (no small feat) and soon we were all seated at the First Street Alehouse. The Alehouse opened in 2000 and firmly planted the craft beer flag in the heart of this wine town. Liz and I shared a burger and a pint of Altimont Brewery’s Left Coast Session Ale.

Full of burgers, brew and fries, we piled back into the limo and soon poured out into the Mitchell Katz tasting room. Interesting reds, oaky Chardonnay and some barrel samples of Sangiovese finished off our tasting but not our adventure.

After wine where better to stop than Loard’s Ice Cream? The first Loard’s opened in 1950 in Oakland and

now this family-owned candy and ice cream parlor has branches across the East Bay. The limo carried us back to downtown for a cone before the drive back to Newark. I’ve got to say, our driver from Ambassador Limousines was great!

Livermore has 4,000 acres of wine grapes planted and 50+ wineries to explore. I’m sure we’ll H.E.A.D. back there again.

My Turn!

Ok, Ira says that as co-Grand PooBahs, his role is play-by-play and mine is color. In other words, he’s

                        The Pat Summerall and I’m the John Madden. He’s the Kuip, I’m the Kruk. He’s Laurel, I’m Hardy. This is really starting to circle the drain…anyway, I’m adding my several cents worth now…We had a blast! Of course, I may be biased because I LOVE white and sparkly wines and we started out with both in the limo. It was a pretty crappy wine, but, hey - it was white and sparkly so I sucked it down. The cool beans was that some people don’t share my delight in crappy fake champagne (Ira) so I got his, too!

Wente was awesome and not just because Harald and Jeneva got us VIP treatment. I finished off several of Ira’s tastes of the white wines and they gave us a really good sparkly! I glossed over the reds (Don’t get me wrong; I tasted them, but I didn’t have as much fun - it kind of seemed like work, a little). Then they gave us a taste of Orange Moscato which nearly caused me to have a peak physical experience…in fact, if there had been dark chocolate accompanying it, I might have embarrassed myself and gotten us all banned from the premises. Long story short – it was goooooood!

Tamas was great because the wine was delish AND they let us (actually, encouraged us) to share flights! Once we got to the reds I wandered off and found a cocktail napkin in the little store area that said “pick me, squeeze me, stomp me, make me wine” Didn’t like it enough to buy the napkins, but I did take a picture of it. Then I went outside and sat in the sun. One of our new members was out there, too, and I think he was asleep. Next stop – lunch and, although I’ve essentially given up meat, burgers sounded good mostly because they come with fries, (which I love but am not allowed to eat with the regularity I’d like. So I take

 opportunities like sitting next to someone who loves me and has fries on their plate to indulge a little.  This is one of the reasons I love to sit next to my 8 year old faux grandson when we go out to dinner. He always gets fries and he loses interest in his food early in the game so, Score: me. This won’t last into his teen years, but then I’ll be able to play the crazy old lady card…)

Anyway, we got into the Great White Whale and proceeded to our final winery where I tasted nothing, but it was pretty there.

For some reason, ice cream made sense to our group. Yelp led us to Loards. They have good ice cream which they proudly proclaim is fully butterfatty. I heard that statins are our friends and I take them every day, so I got butter brickle. It was goooood…We all crammed into a corner booth and even talked a cute little kid into posing with us, You know, for cred (btw, If anybody asks, my name is Miss Pam…).

Back in the boat and over the hill to H.E.A.D.quarters. We offered everybody a room to rest up if anybody felt the need, but I was the only one who did. The next planned H.E.A.D. Trip is December 14 for SantaCon in San Francisco. We might get a H.E.A.D. Rush together for November, but nothing is carved in stone yet. SantaCon is, though, so start getting your Santa suits together, and mark your calendars – in ink, people, this is a fun one!