This also offers visitors a unique opportunity to meet the men and women who make the wine. Most tasting rooms don't charge a fee, and frequently you can spend half an hour chatting with the vineyard's top winemaker.
But Anderson Valley is no longer a backwater. Milla Handley and her husband, Rex McClellan, started their own winery, Handley Cellars, 20 years ago in the basement of their home. Now they produce 15,000 cases a year, offering sauvignon blanc, Gewurztraminer, pinot gris and pinot noir as well as a signature brut and a brut rosé. Duckhorn Wine Co., which is based in Napa, has bought land in recent years to create its Goldeneye vineyard in the valley.
But even in the height of the summer tourist season, Anderson Valley feels like a quiet retreat. Following the twists and turns of Highway 128 (we blasted Blondie's greatest hits as an accompaniment, and the wave of '80s nostalgia distracted me from the winding path), the road opens into a lush valley of vineyards with rolling yellow hills in the distance. Boonville spans all of about four blocks and, according to the county clerk's office, has 974 residents. Just a few minutes up the road, you hit the 218-person town of Philo, which consists mainly of a restaurant, a deli, a gas station and the Philo Pottery Inn.
The inn was unlike any other bed-and-breakfast I have visited. Run by Monika Fuchs and Beverley Bennett, it offers nearly every comfort you could envision. In the morning, Fuchs delivers tea or coffee to every room at 8, followed an hour later by a full breakfast of fresh juices and local produce. (The first morning we had corn cakes with a spicy tomato compote, along with bran muffins; the second day included an amazing zucchini and feta souffle and an apple cake.) Before dinner each night there's wine from a local vineyard, and Fuchs also places a freshly baked treat in the dining room for guests to snack on. If that's not enough, there is port and chocolate in the living room to satisfy late-night munchies.
The two innkeepers have been running the place since June 2001, when they opted to leave San Francisco and lead a less hectic life. Fuchs, a former travel agent, jokes that she's had "a long and checkered history of customer service," but in fact she and her partner have achieved a perfect balance of making guests comfortable without being too intrusive, something that most B&B owners never manage.
"We want [guests] to be able to leave their stress behind, read a book or wander around," she says.
The inn has five rooms, including a small cottage in the middle of a garden. The cottage offers a perfect rustic retreat, including a tiny deck out back. I opted, however, to spend much of my time in the garden, where you can read beneath flowering trees and pick fresh plums off a few of them, if you feel like it.
Eating, in fact, is a major part of any Anderson Valley stay. For upscale dining there's the Boonville Hotel, a beautiful old building with a yuppie-ish restaurant. We had quite a good meal there, only slightly marred by the fact that Vic declared the local bottle of organic cabernet franc we ordered "undrinkable" after taking a few sips.
We didn't have a chance to eat at Libby's, a Mexican restaurant in Philo, but others rave about it. Rep. Thompson likes the place so much that he and his wife recently restrained themselves at a nearby salmon bake so they could have "a little Mexican food" on their way back home. And for beer lovers, there's the Anderson Valley Brewing Co.
True foodies might want to book a stay at the Apple Farm, where they can take cooking classes from Sally and Don Schmitt, former owners of Napa's renowned French Laundry restaurant. If you just want to stop by instead, you can buy apples, cider, tomatoes and chutneys there.
