Happy Anniversary Part 2

After packing up our new coffeetable, we headed to our next vineyard, called "Ridge". It is literally at the top of a mountain. We made our way slowly up the winding road, feeling a bit hungry (I actually felt a bit whoopsy from the sharp corners) but excited by the views. In places, the road was only wide enough for one car.
The Ridge tasting room was more formal than the other one, but they had a couple of good wines. In fact, Joe and I bought our very first "age-able" wine there. It is a 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon blend. It will be "ripe" for drinking in 2011. It would taste good now, but will taste amazing then. Since we don't have anything resembling a wine cellar, this is somewhat of an experiment. We're hoping that San Francisco weather is cool and humid enough on its own to keep the wine from going bad. Guess we'll see in 5 years!
Ridge is a great place to have a picnic, except for the hornets swarming everywhere. I'm not usually afraid of bugs, but there is something about big hornets that make me jump up and run for the hills.
We headed back down the mountain to our hotel in Los Gatos. Los Gatos is an adorable little town, and our hotel room was really nice, with our own little balcony (facing the parking lot, but still). We had some snacks in the bar, then went out to explore the area a little bit. It is full of cute shops and restaurants. The window of an art gallery caught our eye as well. They had a display of Markus Pierson originals, and I swear if I had an extra $5000, I would buy this one.
We went back to the hotel to read on the balcony and then get ready for dinner. Joe had tried to get reservations at Manressa, the fanciest, only-two-Michelin-starred restaurant in town, but it proved to be difficult. Instead we went to Cafe Marcella, supposedly the best Italian food in Los Gatos.
It turned out to be some of the tastiest food I've ever had. Honestly, at least for the price. I got crab risotto and Joe had asparagus soup for an appetizer. Then, when our entrees were taking a long time to come out of the very busy kitchen, the waiter felt bad and turned our "glasses of wine" into "bottomless glasses of wine." Even at the end of our meal, after dessert, he came by and filled them up. Our entrees were delicious, fish in an amazing tomato-basil-butter sauce and duck confit. For dessert I got a raspberry tart and Joe got warm bread pudding, both of which were really above and beyond. Our waiter, though he got sweatier and more crazed as the night went on, was really cool.
The next morning we had a tasty but small and simple breakfast at the popular local breakfast joint. At 9 am on a Sunday, Los Gatos is FILLED with people. It's insane. Everyone gets up to go jogging, and then goes to breakfast or to the farmer's market, all of which we did. Well, except the jogging, of course.
Then we had some tough decisions to make. Go to more vineyards, or head back into San Fran to see the Blue Angels air show? We decided on the show, and boy was it worth it. We sat on a hillside in Fort Mason, facing the water right about where the Blue Angels do their death-defying, 100-mile-an-hour near-misses of each other. It was very cool and they're so LOUD! Very exciting.
To finish off our weekend, we HAULED BUTT down to Golden Gate Park to catch the very last performance of the Bluegrass Festival (which we originally didn't know about, or we might have stayed in town for it. Oh well, next year...) which was EmmyLou Harris. We were way at the back, but the whole place was so relaxed and happy, and we both love her music. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful weekend, for a wonderful two years.