Dog wine tasting in the Russian River Valley

Wait, that kind of sounds like we were tasting dog wine. I don’t think that’s a thing. What I meant to say was that we and our dog went wine tasting.

Wait. Still not…I mean, he does have a refined palate, but mostly just for butts. And dried up bull penises.

Wait, this story has gone awry. Let me start over.

This Spring, Richard and I spent a long weekend exploring the Russian River Valley in Northern California, and we brought Charlie along. Famous for its beautiful scenery, plentiful vineyards, and a mini-Kremlin.

I may have made one of those things up.

Once again, we used AirBnb to find a rental — this time it was the middle floor apartment of some very nice lesbians who lived on the outskirts of Forestville. If the question was, “Can you furnish an entire studio apartment with Ikea for under $800?” the answer, said this apartment, was a resounding yes.

It was unseasonably hot, so although the apartment had no air conditioning, we were glad it was close to a beach along the Russian River. Charlie got to practice his swimming and moistened rat impersonation.

On our first night, we went to the inskirts of Forestville and had dinner at the suitably-hip Backyard, rife with mason jars, locally-sourced ingredients, and servers who thought very highly of themselves.

The next day, we did a little research to find a doge-friendly winery (this site was really helpful, if you’re in the same river boat: SonomaBARK) and found ourselves at the stunning-vista-plagued Russian Hill Estate Winery.

We sat on the back patio that overlooks the vineyards and took our time going through their tasting list, while Charlie alternated between taking in the scenery and freaking out about how hot it is right now guys, are you seriously going to make me stay outside in this heat?

The wine attendant wasn’t super chatty with us, but we did just pop into the tasting room one at a time for refills. I eventually got him to tell me about the winery — I think some retired doctors from San Francisco bought the property and created their dream vineyard getaway. They lived in a fairly grand house right next to the tasting room. And had to wake up to this grotesque scene every day.

Unlike the high-class “wineries” of Indiana that we’re used to, a lot of the wineries out here don’t have much to nibble on, so we stopped by a backwoodsy market on the way back to the apartment.

The weirdest thing about California wine country is that it’s half-people acting fancy at wineries and half-people just trying to get by in very rural farmland. It is surprising how often we are reminded of southern Indiana while driving through rolling crops, on ill-paved curvy roads, passing biker bars, feed ‘n seeds, and yards full of rusting God knows whats.

On this weekend, for example, a lot of folks were contemplating wine on the patios of quiet vineyards, and a lot of folks were parking their pickups along the road and hoisting their inner tubes and coolers down to the river. Yin and yang made visible.

For dinner, we left Charlie to recover in the apartment and went to Guerneville (that’s Gern-vill, for anyone who might be confused about the pronunciation), sort of the main drag of the Russian River Valley, to try out Boon Eat + Drink. It was uber crowded, uber hot (it’s rare to find air conditioning in the Bay Area since it’s never very hot, so when it is there’s no respite), and again trying to straddle that hipster-posh line. But it was right next to Rainbow Cattle Company, a late-80’s era gay saloon. Like that one in Blues Brothers, but slightly gayer. So I assume. Yin and yang.

We poked around Guerneville for a bit, walked along the now-deserted beachy bank of the Russian River, witnessed ambulances assisting a lady passed out in front of said Rainbow Cattle Co, and called it a night.

On our way home the next day we stopped at one more dog-friendly winery. We’d actually tried to take Charlie to DeLoach Vineyards on our Sebastopol trip, but they were closing up shop early for an event.

This time around we were allowed in, and sipped wine on the shaded porch for an hour or two.

They did have a tiny cabinet of foodstuffs, so we bought some sausage, cheese and bread and, to even out the fanciness of a morning spent sipping wine, had a cludged parking lot picnic in the air conditioning of the car. It involved hacking the sausage apart with Richard’s utility knife on the console, and we felt pretty damn classy.