The photo says it all. 2016’s BottleRock Napa Valley now has a lineup set for individual days throughout the three-day weekend, taking place May 27-29. Stevie Wonder headlines on Friday night, while Florence + the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers round out the headlining spots on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Single day tickets go on sale tomorrow, Feb 2, at 10am. For more info, visit BottleRockNapaValley.com.
Sonoma native and Western-swing legend Tommy Thomsen had some serious health issues in the last few years, battling liver cancer that recently went into remission. Through it all, Thomsen has remained strong, and this weekend he celebrates his 68th birthday with a concert in Sonoma. Joining him will be a host of local stars, such as lap-steel guitarist Ken Emerson, singer Wendy DeWitt and others. Barbecue, cocktails and wine will all be on hand when Thomsen and friends party down on Friday, Jan. 29, at Rossi’s 1906, 401 Grove St., Sonoma. 8:30pm. $10. 707.343.0044.
Last year’s inaugural LumaCon was a massive gathering of comic book artists and authors mingling with local youth and families. It was such a huge success that LumaCon is back for a bigger and better second year. Panel discussions on comics as literature and a focus on women as artists and writers will accompany dozens of artists displaying their work and meeting with fans, crafty activities, cosplay competitions and more, with several local vendors and exhibitors like Copperfield’s Books and the Charles M. Schulz Museum in on the fun. LumaCon leaps off the page on Saturday, Jan. 30, at Petaluma Community Center & Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. 10am–4pm. Free admission. lumacon.net.
Formed in 2002, RateBeer Best has expanded from a homegrown beer-ranking blog into an international and industry-influencing awards program. This year marks the first time the online RateBeer Best Award announcement is a live event, and it takes place in Santa Rosa on Saturday night. The next day, 40 of the world’s best brewers celebrate with a Beer Festival inside a hangar at the Sonoma County Airport. RateBeer Best Awards goes live on Jan. 30 at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek, 170 Railroad St., Santa Rosa. 5pm. The Beer Festival flies high on Jan. 31 at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, 2290 Airport Blvd., Santa Rosa. 2pm. $75. ratebeerbest.com.
North Bay book lovers have cause to celebrate this weekend, as the newest literary event in the area, Bookmark Napa Valley, brings together bestselling authors and great food and wine for an engaging evening that benefits the St. Helena public library. Guests include Cara Black, New York Times bestselling author of the Aimée Leduc mystery series, novelist Laura McBride, SF Chronicle music critic Joel Selvin, and Hampton Sides, author of nonfiction adventure stories including the New York Times bestseller In the Kingdom of Ice. Bookmark Napa Valley takes place on Sunday, Jan. 31, at Charles Krug Winery, 2800 Main St., St. Helena. 5:30pm. $150. 707.307.3706.
CRAB DISASTER
On Monday, a group of 11 bipartisan coastal legislators that included State Sen. Mike McGuire made the unofficial official when they asked Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a fishery disaster “due to the devastating impacts on the California crab season,” according to a statement from McGuire’s office. He’s the chairman of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, on which also sits Healdsburg assemblyman Jim Wood, another signatory to the letter.
The Dungeness crab season has been shut down since early November when state health officials found high levels of domoic acid in the delectable and iconic California creatures. There has been some improvement in those levels, but not enough across state waters to lift the ban.
It’s been a tough year for North Bay fishermen, period. McGuire notes that the crab shutdown followed on the heels of a “disastrous salmon season.” The commercial Dungeness and rock crab fisheries in California are good for between $60 million and $90 million in annual sales.
A state-level disaster declaration would open the door to cash assistance from the federal government; the local congressional delegation, including Rep. Jared Huffman, has already signaled it would push for federal disaster dollars in the event Brown signed off on the legislators’ push.
The letter to Brown comes as the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association has already set up a food bank for hurting fishermen . In conjunction with Sonoma County Parks, the Spud Point Marina is accepting donations of condiments, salad items, cheese, personal care items, eggs, butter, raw vegetables—and cash. Monetary donations are transferred into Safeway gift cards for fishermen and their families, according to a press release from the marina.
Spud Point is accepting items Mon-Fri from 10am-3pm. The marina is located at 1818 Westshore Road in Bodega Bay. Further information on how to donate is available through Lori Cavanaugh at the marina, 707.875.3535.
LEGAL POT
The state Senate voted Monday in favor of AB 21, a bill that seeks to eliminate a looming deadline for localities to come up with municipal regulations regarding medical marijuana, as commanded of them by last year’s landmark omnibus medical cannabis bill.
Derek Peterson, CEO and founder of the publicly traded TerraTech (the company owns the Blum Medical Dispensary in Oakland), hailed the move by the Senate to eliminate the fast-approaching March 1 deadline. In a statement, Peterson described the fixing of the original deadline as the function of a “drafting error” in last year’s Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, and that fixing the error will make sure that localities are given the proper and timely regulatory sway afforded by last year’s pot bill.
Among other gestures geared toward local sensibilities, the omnibus medical pot law gives the green-light to localities when it comes to regulating cultivation operations in their midst, but the law was written so that if localities didn’t come up with their own regulatory schemes by March 1, the state would assume the lead regulatory role.
Faced with the prospect of the deadline, Santa Rosa approved its own temporary commercial growing ordinance Jan. 19.
Assemblyman Jim Wood,
who helped author the original cannabis bill, authored AB 21 in order to fix the errantly imposed deadline. Next stop for the bill is the office Gov. Jerry Brown, and he is widely expected to sign off on it.
In 2004, when Carol and Tony Anello opened their dream retirement business in Bodega Bay, they had no idea Spud Point Crab Co. would become a Sonoma County staple, attracting tourists and locals to their front yard year-round. What was intended to be a small, home-based roadside operation escalated into a 16-hour-a-day labor of love making lots of New England clam chowder. Carol developed the recipe the way she likes it: thick and rich with butter and cream, and balanced flavors of clams and garlic. Carol is passionate about the quality of her chowder, and she adjusts the recipe throughout the year in accordance with the strength of the garlic.
Spud Point’s chowder has become so popular the restaurant recently added a small outbuilding Carol calls “the chowder line.” The facility has not only met Spud Point’s growing need to fill chowder orders faster than food orders, it also gives Carol the chance to do what she enjoys most: connecting with customers.
Despite its reputation for clam chowder, Spud Point Crab Co. has more to offer than just soup. As the name suggests, it also offers fresh, whole crab caught with the company’s three fishing boats. When it comes to Spud Point’s crab, the words “fresh” and “local” are highlighted by the fact that you can actually see the fleet in the marina from your seat on the outdoor patio. Of course, crab isn’t available until the state declares high levels of domoic acid levels in Dungeness crab have dropped.
On Jan. 30, Spud Point will join other local restaurants in a friendly competition for a good cause. The 13th annual Chowder Day in Bodega Bay pits local chowders against each other and raises money for the Bodega Bay fireworks. For $10, participants get a ticket that serves as ballot and map. The map will leads chowder lovers all over Bodega Bay for the tasting. Spud Point’s clam chowder has won first place in the people’s choice category for the past 11 years.
Spud Point Crab Co., 1910 Westshore Road, Bodega Bay, 707.875.9472. Go to visitbodegabayca.com for tickets and
more information about Chowder Day.
There are two ways to get an entirely new perspective on a familiar old town: you can tour another land, very expensively and very far away, to return with new eyes, or you can just hop on a bus that other tourists take to experience your home turf.
Although I’ve lived in Sonoma County for a good few years now, I didn’t know that this winemaking clan lived over here—as a tour bus driver points out at high volume over the loudspeakers of the mostly empty luxury bus I’m riding in—or that that other century-old dynasty occupied that hilltop estate over there. Our destination is Ravenswood Winery. I’ve also been here many times, and noted how the friendly atmosphere of the tasting room has held up remarkably well under corporate overlordship. Heck, I’ve even tasted some of the fresh grape components that go into the Ravenswood Vintner’s Blend Zinfandel in the field. But have I ever sat down for a blending seminar that challenges me to strike a balanced blend with the traditional troika of Petite Sirah, Carignane and Zinfandel? Why, no, this is the first.
Blending seminars are a new addition to the winetasting repertoire. Instead of paying a triple tariff to simply kick back and nibble some cheese with your wine, or even a scallop or two, blending activities require that you roll up your sleeves and contribute. It works, and it’s great for groups.
Our host, Peter Griffith, offers a detailed explanation of what makes Petite Sirah and Carignane crucial to the classic Zinfandel blend. Long story short: tannin, acid, fruit.
Now’s the time when we suck the pipettes. Leaving the group to do their thing, Griffith encourages experimentation in 1 to 20 milliliter increments, sucked into laboratory pipettes and deposited in glasses. Each participant’s favorite blend is dialed in and deposited into a 375ml bottle that, Griffith says, mostly ends up drunk up within 30 minutes of leaving the tasting room. The rest end up on people’s desks—they’re topped with attractive but impervious-looking wax caps.
The wine will actually keep for few years, says Griffith. History, by which I mean my sketchy notes, does not record my final blend, but I believe it was heavy on the earthy Zin, with a good dose of bright Carignane and a miserly dash of what was, to me, an uninspiring Petite Sirah.
After the work is done, blenders are ushered to the members-only area of the terrace to taste Ravenswood favorites like Old Hill Zin and, yes, nibble on cheese while taking in the vineyard view.
Ravenswood Winery, 18701 Gehricke Road, Sonoma. Blending seminars $65 per person, by reservation. 707.933.2332.
HIKING REBOOT
Hipcamp takes the sharing economy into the great outdoors
Last summer, carfuls of millennials in trendy hats, plaid flannels and new hiking boots descended on Oz Farm, a vast, rural property five miles north of Point Arena, and settled in yurts and tents on the dusty ground. It looked like an Urban Outfitters catalogue shoot. The tents were provided by North Face and dinner was catered by San Francisco’s Hook Fish Co. Bottomless vodka cocktails, free-flowing wine and kombucha on tap kept the crowd happy.
The organizer of the overnight camping event was Hipcamp, an online startup that aims to upgrade the camping-reservation system and expose nature lovers to new experiences on private and public lands. Founded in 2013 by Alyssa Ravasio and Eric Bach, Hipcamp is often called the Airbnb of camping.
“Hipcamp is everywhere you want to camp,” the company proclaims on its website. “Search, discover and book ranches, farms, vineyards, nature preserves and public sites for camping across the U.S.” Its goal is to simplify and improve the often unnecessarily complicated task of booking a campsite.
Ravasio, the company’s CEO, grew up in Corte Madera, “swimming in the oceans of Stinson, hiking the bluffs of Point Reyes and camping in the valleys of Mt. Tam,” and graduated from UCLA in 2011 with a customized degree in “digital democracy.”
Like many businesses, Hipcamp was born out of necessity and frustration. “I had this dream of spending New Year’s Eve 2013 camping so I could spend the first morning of the year writing in my journal by the ocean,” Revasio says. “After many painful hours of searching, I almost gave up—it was so difficult to figure out where I could go.” She finally booked a place, but missed a key detail.
“Upon arriving,” she says, “I realized that despite searching a handful of different websites, including the state park page, I’d failed to learn that it was home to a beautiful surf break, and I’d left my surfboard at home.”
Instead of spending the first morning of the year writing, Revasio instead watched, envious, as other surfers had all the fun. “I tried so hard to plan this trip, and still failed,” she says. “So we always joke that Hipcamp ‘started with a wave,’ but really, it’s true!”
Hipcamp initially covered only Northern California, an area “blessed with magical coastlines, soaring mountains and beautiful forests,” Revasio says, adding the convenient proximity to tech-capital San Francisco as well. The website now covers all 50 states. Its popularity grew by word of mouth that was fueled by a clever referral program: refer a landowner and receive $100 if the landlord lists the site.
For aspiring campers, things are made easy through a search engine that filters options by such features as “cave” and “beach”; activities such as “kayaking” and “fishing”; and amenities and types of lodging from RV parking to cabins. (Reviews are also provided.) Prices range from $35 for a campground to $175 for a rustic barn with a shower and a stove.
Land sharing and tapping into the private sector is especially important to Revasio. “With Hipcamp, you’re going places that you couldn’t go before,” she says. “You’re also supporting landowners who want to keep their land open and undeveloped.”
Revasio additionally stresses the communal aspect, which allows campers to mingle with owners and experience “the cultural exchange between urban and rural.” Not all owners will greet you personally, cup of coffee in hand, though many are onsite and willing to chat.
“It’s a great chance for two people who are otherwise unlikely to meet to connect and learn from each other,” Revasio says.
Hipcamp is not alone on the camping trail. Reserve America, a much older and established website, was the first to marry camping and technology, though Hipcamp’s youthful team and slick design set it apart and welcome lumbersexual millennials. It’s also right in line with the meet-the-locals premise, which promises an authentic experience and fresh air to cynical urbanites.
Hipcamp might seem aimed at big city dwellers, but it’s also ideal for North Bay residents seeking to discover natural treasures in their own backyard. Driving for an hour or so and checking into a yurt or a coastal cabin can be as far from home as it gets, and who knows, you might end up befriending the plaid-wearing, honey-making, sustainable-farming neighbor you never knew you had.
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HIPCAMP SPOTS IN THE NORTH BAY
Oz Farm, Point Arena
Just across the Sonoma County border in Mendocino County, this is a 600-acre “hippie-commune-turned-organic-farm” that offers a creek for impromptu bathing, seven rustic cabins, redwood campsites and styled-out geodesic domes. There’s a fully equipped community kitchen and an outdoor wood-burning pizza oven.
Wine Farm, Sonoma
A homestead farm with a Chardonnay vineyard that’s got plenty of room for tents between the vines. Refrigerator and bar facilities are available, and so is the opportunity to buy chicken and duck eggs straight from the farm.
Overlook, Salmon Creek
Located on Chanslor Ranch just north of Bodega Bay, this campsite is windy and rugged, and its location, on a small bluff, offers breathtaking ocean views. Salamander Ravine and Turtle Pond are short walks away.
More options
If staycationing the local way is an exciting notion, there are other websites representing homegrown and cozy adventures, often hosted in private residences. Verlocal.com is a relative newcomer that offers workshops and classes from pottery to making ramen in a casual setting. While a good portion of those takes place in San Francisco, North Bay courses include wilderness survival in Marin County and a beekeeping workshop in Napa County.
For food lovers who look beyond the trendy restaurants, there’s EatWith, an Israeli-born initiative that introduces diners to hosts and home cooks interested in hosting a dinner party, a brunch or a tapas affair. Happening mostly in large cities, EatWith nevertheless welcomes new hosts in slightly less central locations, so stay on the lookout, or become a host and contribute to other folks’ staycation.
—Flora Tsapovsky
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STAYCATION IN THE VINEYARD
Few are the cynics who, like one prominent English wine critic, look at a verdant vineyard and see nothing more romantic than a potato field. Lots of folks just love the vineyards and long to roam through the vines of Sonoma County
and Napa Valley under
what some observers
have called a remarkably Tuscan-like experience.
Sound like the right kind of getaway? A number of wineries, most of them small, are adding to their bottom line while helping vacationers do just that by renting out their vineyard houses.
Occidental Road Cellars
Follow a collection of rusted crawlers past the old metal box that used to be the Monte Rio jail and up the drive to Joelle and Richard Prather’s three-bedroom rental overlooking their Horseshoe Bend Vineyards. Located just 70 yards from the Sonoma Coast viticultural area, the vineyard is surrounded by second-growth forest and supplies Schramsberg, Radio-Coteau and other wineries, as well as the Prather’s own efforts—a bottle of which is included with your stay. Rates average $333, Monte Rio jail not included. occidentalroadcellars.com.
Landmark Vineyards
It’s no extravagance to travel across the pond for the weekend, if it’s the placid little pond behind the Landmark tasting room. Here’s a little cottage just for two—or more, with the sofa bed employed—within walking distance of Kenwood area dining and hiking. It starts at $325 a night, a comparative economy rate for private accommodations in wine country. (Clearly, the owners of Pom Wonderful aren’t counting on the extra dough.) A guest suite is also available from $300, including continental breakfast and a bottle of gently oaked Overlook Chardonnay. landmarkwine.com.
West Wines
You’ve seen one lurid, Victorian wallpapered B&B room too many? Stay in a crib owned and decorated by Swedes. Katarina Bonde and Bengt Akerlind rent out a tidy, three-bedroom cottage they call the “Big Oak House” adjacent their tasting room, just outside of Healdsburg. It’s the oak that’s big, not the house, but it can accommodate up to eight people for a big weekend in Dry Creek Valley. Rates from $395 to $650. westwines.com.
Jordan Vineyard
& Winery
Yes, even in rural Alexander Valley there’s at least one way to fulfill your dream of staying in a real, faux-French chateau, complete with private driver: members of Jordan’s Platinum and Gold rewards clubs may purchase winery stays for as little as $50—plus 5,000 points. That’s a lot of wine, so start stocking up soon. jordanwinery.com.
In Napa Valley, county regulations prohibit wineries from operating a rental for less than 30 days at a pop, so options are limited. But they are luxurious.
Poetry Inn
Developer Cliff Lede was careful to build his expansive, five-room bed and breakfast on the same footprint of a previous residence, and it’s located away from his eponymous winery and vineyards, which guests may view from the lobby veranda, from the decks adjoining their rooms—even while naked, from the capacious open-air showers that overlook Napa Valley. Casual luxury is the mode in this joint, where the uniquely furnished rooms are named for beard-scratchers and tortured souls—poets Walt Whitman, e. e. cummings, Robert Frost, Robert Louis Stevenson and Emily Dickinson. The tub in the Whitman is vast, and could very well contain multitudes. Rates start at $650 in winter and top $1,900 in summer—but that does include a three-course breakfast. With kale! poetryinn.com.
—James Knight
The late August Wilson’s penultimate play, the supremely lyrical and gorgeously written 2003 drama Gem of the Ocean, may be set in 1904, but its themes stretch purposefully back in time to the beginning of New World slavery and reach forward to the present, when African Americans are still fighting many of the same struggles.
This timelessness is sewn into the script of Gem like the old quilts and collages that Wilson gave as inspiration for his work, blending lush historical detail and remarkably well-drawn characters into a plot that unfolds like a roll of fabric, with language and dialogue that moves from colloquial specificity to the heart-breaking heights of pure poetry.
In Daniel Alexander Jones’ sometimes baffling but emotionally rich staging, Wilson’s engaging words are embellished with a kind of hand-clapping, finger-snapping, sign-language-style choreography that resembles dance but stops short of having his characters actually burst into ballet or the soft shoe. It’s a technique Jones calls “theatrical jazz,” something the young New York–based director is known for.
Whether Wilson’s tour de force cries out for such initially distracting ornamentation, or whether the story is served or strengthened by this distinctively, almost ritualistically musical performance, is ultimately beside the point. This is, after all, the most mystical and “ritualistic” of Wilson’s 10 Century Cycle plays, and Jones’ aesthetic eventually does make a kind of otherworldly sense. There is a lightness and playfulness to the entire production, which makes it stand out from other productions of Gem I’ve seen, and the sense of determined hopefulness and ragged joy that rises from the story’s accumulating tragedies at times feels almost revolutionary.
The story follows a group of lost, wounded souls who’ve found a refuge in the Pittsburgh home of Aunt Ester (played with brilliant, buoyant groundedness by Margo Hall), who claims to be 285 years old, and serves as the personification of her community’s collective memory of slavery. Throughout the two-and-a-half-hour play, Ester ushers a guilt-ridden newcomer named Citizen Barlow (Namir Smallwood) through initiations that include a guided visualization to a city of bones at the bottom of the sea.
Though there are challenges in this bold, impeccably acted reinterpretation of an American masterpiece, the audience goes along with Barlow on a similar journey, one that is as mysterious and strange as it is illuminating, devastating and beautiful.
Rating (out of 5): ★★★★½
‘Gem of the Ocean’ runs Tuesday–Sunday through Feb. 14 at Marin Theatre Company. 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Times vary. $20–$58. 415.388.5208.
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