Saturday we joined our friends M and N and little baby S for a pleasant visit to Davenport and the nearby Bonny Doon Vineyard. The entire trip was predicated on the opportunity for N to relive a scene from the Australian comedy “The Castle” by singing repeatedly, “We’re going to Bonny Doon!”
If you’re like me and haven’t yet indulged in the pleasure of watching “The Castle”, read Roger Ebert’s review and skim a faithful fan’s partial transcription of the script to see if you would like it. The movie is acclaimed by our favorite Aussie ex-pat to be epic cinema.
We spent the night at the Davenport Inn. If you ever find yourself spending the night in the tiny city of Davenport, CA, (population 200), it is likely that you will also be staying at the Davenport Inn, as I didn’t see anything else resembling a hotel or inn. If you do go there, and I recommend that you do, definitely spend some time in the Davenport Cash Store and Restaurant. The store has some very cool ethnic stuff, including a lot of nice art objects from South America. The restaurant serves excellent food and has beautiful ethnic decor. The textiles, the Day of the Dead figures, and the masks were gorgeous. Everything we ordered was stellar.
The Bonny Doon Vineyard never disappoints. It’s unlikely you will find yourself in Bonny Doon on other business, but if you are in Santa Cruz, the vineyard is only about a twenty minute drive away. It’s far and away my favorite tasting room experience in all of California.
Although M and I worked our way through eight Bonny Doon wines, very few of them were among the ten or so Sandra and I had tasted at the winemaker’s dinner I mentioned here.
The dessert wine highlight was the Book of Love Framboise served in small dark Belgian chocolate cups. Raspberry and chocolate are definitely made for each other, assuming that both are very high quality. Otherwise you get Robitussin Ovaltine. We liked the chocolate cups so much we bought three packages. Oh yeah, and twenty bottles of wine between us.