Red Truck Road Trip – WEST Coast Team

June 29th:

Brad and I arrived SF around 11:06am with our tour guide Adam. We toured Oakland Hills, Berkeley, UC Berkeley, the Berkeley Rose Garden and then off to SF, the Mission District. We went to the Giants game and saw Barry Bonds hit #750.

June 30th:

I played two rounds of Disc Golf at Golden Gate State Park. A beautiful course and park for that matter. After disc I headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge to do some sketches of the bridge. Back to the Mission District for an unbelievable super chicken burrito and a nap. Headed out to a bar/club called 12 Galaxies to see a worldly band called Toubab Krewe. It was a great show but the icing on top of the cake was when I sneaking into the green room to meet the band. Fun.

July 1st:

Grabbed our month long rental car at the SF Airport and met Mike and Dan Leese (amazing) at Alamo. It was the first time Mike, Brad, and myself were all together. We had a PR meeting at the Marc Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel near Union Square in SF with the wonderful Mora Cronin. After a pot of coffee, some informational packets, and a small tasting we headed over to The Restaurant LuLu on Folsom St. for a spectacular dinner! Salads, oysters, mussels, fungi pizza, roasted quail, salmon, Picket Fence Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Both were killer. After dinner Brad and I stayed at the Hotel Nikko in SF.

July 2nd: (kick-off)

We arrived at Fort Mason near the marina for a wonderful kick-off party with the Red Truck Family at 11am. After meeting Becky Walker (partner) and the marketing team of Carol and Alex (all sweet as can be) we mingled over some Red Truck and White Truck while snacking on some delicious Whole Foods nibbles. Just after 1ish we headed up to meet Dan (partner) at 585WinePartners in Sonoma. We received a warm welcome from the rest of the RT Family.

Dan took us over to the Cline Vineyard to meet the winemaker Charlie Tsegeletos. We were absolutely blown away by Charlie. We were given a very VIP tour of the facility with a one of a kind tasting along the way. It was just beyond words. Charlie showed us all the vats holding the wine, the solar power roof panels, the storage areas, etc. As we left were given a bottle of Cline’s Ancient Vines Mourvedre ‘05.

After we left Charlie and Dan, we decided to get in a quick tasting or two. We headed over to St. Jean but they were closed. We settled for an “adventure tasting” at the Mayo Vineyard. It wasn’t even close to Charlie’s tasting. After Mayo we headed up to Truckee, near Lake Tahoe to seek shelter until July 4th. We stopped at In and Out for a couple of burgers on the way. Upon arriving Truckee we found ourselves kicking back and enjoying the Mourvedre.

I decided to finally break out the canvas and paint until 2am. 2 sonoma landscapes are in the works!

July 3rd:

Woke up. Found Mike on the couch who had already went for a run. I made a pot of coffee and began painting on the deck of this palace of a cabin that overlooks rolling hills filled with dense pines. I wanted to enter my first blog so here it is. I’ll be back in a bit! MIKEY