Monterey Wine Tasting

Once, in ninth grade, I had to fake the results of a science project that I had woefully neglected. As a result, I found myself trying to recreate a journal for my project – how much the plants had grown, and observations I had made on each day, in a few hours. Most of it was b.s.

This blog entry is a lot like that journal.

I probably should have taken notes about our trip to Monterey’s wineries, where we went, and what we ate, but truth be told, I was drunk. I was really drunk. And then I let about a month lapse, so now I have little to no recollection of what happened that weekend – except that we made a lot of jokes about Todd’s mom (who’s apparently a very nice woman). I can say that Monterey’s wine country, while still very  touristy, is much cheaper and less crowded than its Napa  Valley counterpart. Here’s my somewhat sketchy account of what took place, based on the photos I took, many of which were a surprise to me:

We stayed at the Monterey Plaza Hotel, which was actually pretty reasonably priced (I think around $160/night) and located right on Cannery Row.

Our room was not on this side.

The hotel is sprawling – spanning several buildings, connected by breezeways. This is a really terrible configuration, especially if you are drunk. It means you may have to take 2 elevators to get to the lobby, or that you’ll find yourself in the basement with no clue where you are. Seriously – it was like the architects of the Winchester house decided to make a hotel. Our room had no a.c. (I don’t think any of them did), had a view of nothing (not a big deal). What really pissed me off, though, was that they stopped serving breakfast at 11am. Weak.

Our first night there, we just walked along Cannery Row, which was really quite lovely …

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Then Bob found a bust of John Steinbeck, who set his eponymous novel here:

Bob’s going to hell, but probably not for this.

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We headed to the Fisherman’s Wharf. Like idiots, we paid for a cab, but we later found out that the hotel offered a free shuttle service (also, did you know cab drivers hate drunk women who don’t carry cash? True story!). We ended up eating at Cafe Fina. The food was great, though it felt slightly at though they were trying too hard:

This salad was awesome, but seriously, there was way too much going on.

The sad little broccolli florets were totally unnecessary. The rest? Totally wicked.

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We also apparently downed a few bottles of Cakebread wine.

I have no recollections of these events.

The next day, we split a limo between 8 of us (it ended up being about $200/couple for 7 hours or so) and hit roughly 7 wineries. And while I should probably go into it a bit more, I really don’t remember much of it. Besides that, the photos do a better job summarizing the day than I ever will.

Here the hubby and some of our friends pretend to know something – anything – about wine:

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I don’t really know what’s going on here.

There were numerous photos taken in the limo. This is one of the few appropriate ones.

That was it. We got trashed roughly before 5pm, and when the waiter at dinner asked us if we wanted anything to drink, we shared a communal groan. The next day, the hubby and I dragged our hung-over selves to the Monterey Aquarium, which I highly recommend …

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Funny enough, even live seafood is kind of nauseating when you’re hungover.