Why we have these cars, revisited (2)...

[Scott Fisher <sefisher@domain.elided>]

When last we left Our Hero, he, his wife Kim, and his Alfa Romeo Spider
were leading 14 British sports cars (and a couple of support vehicles
filled with other family members) down Highway 1, about to turn left on
Bonny Doon Road.  

Bonny Doon is one of my favorite stretches of road, for several
reasons.  To begin with, it's gorgeous, with a kind of scenery we hadn't
seen much of yet.  Golden hillsides come right down to the edge of the
road, there's a streambed off to the right for the early third or so of
the drive, and the road is lined with California bay laurels, sycamores,
and other lower-elevation trees.  The result is a blur of bright green
and gold, a road that twists back and forth, up and down, and a gradual
climb up the canyon.  About two-thirds of the way up to the winery, the
road becomes steeper than it looks; I remember having to drop down to
second gear in the 1300 to be able to keep the revs high enough to deal
with the climb, but then in the 1300 it's no trouble to buzz the car up
to 7000 RPM or more.  

At the top of the crest, the driver of the Healey thanked me -- "Trying
to keep up with you seems to have fixed my 3000 RPM miss!" he said. 
"Must have cleared out whatever was gumming up the carbs."  

"They don't call it an 'Italian tune-up' for nothing," I replied.  "Glad
to know it was that simple to fix."

The winery here is another non-negotiable stop, as Kim and I are very
fond of several Bonny Doon wines.  There's also a lovely picnic area at
the rear, surrounded by wild blackberry vines -- and it just isn't The
Tour without a few freshly picked wild blackberries.  Last year my
daughters were with me, and they spent the wine-tasting time out in the
picnic ground, denuding the vines of berries and staining their lips
dark purple.  My youngest daughter caught a snake that year; no snakes
put in an appearance this year, but the berries were tart, plump and
juicy.

The wines of Bonny Doon are -- well, let's just say that Randall, the
winemaker, owns a number of Citroens, and he makes wines that are as
idiosyncratic as his cars.  I happen to love most of his wines, which
tend to use either Rhone varietals (carignane, grenache, syrah,
mourvedre) or Italian grapes (refosco, barbera) and are vinified in the
style of the romantic south, the Mediterranean.  In particular, Bonny
Doon makes a 'vin gris' or 'grey wine' which uses the Rhone varietals
common to, say, a Chateauneuf du Pape but removes them from their skins
after only a few hours.  The result is then vinified to absolute
dryness, without a hint of residual sugar, for a pink wine with the
character, depth, and structure of a red, and none of the soda-pop
sweetness that most California blush wines share.  This is a pink wine
that stands with the roses of Anjou and Provence, a lovely thing either
with food or on its own, sipped languorously during a long sunset.  

Kim arranged for a half-case of varied things, which we carefully tucked
into the Alfa's trunk, and then headed up into the mountains for the
next leg of the journey: up Pine Flat Road (for those of you following
along on the home version of the Britcars Tour Game), through one of the
only stands of Ponderosa pine outside of the Sierra.  Yes, the same
pines immortalized by Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker -- stately, tall
pines with long, brushy needles.  Pine Flat Road turns into Empire
Grade, and the scenery changes from tall pines to scrub oaks and French
broom, the road cut showing red-orange iron ore astride the lazy loops
of asphalt.  The first four-way intersection is Felton Empire Road, and
that's where we make a left turn to descent into the town of Felton, via
one of my favorite roads of the trip.

If you've seen the third Star Wars movie -- "The Return of the Jedi,"
aka "Episode VI, aka "The one with those damn teddy bear Muppet things"
- -- you will no doubt remember the chase through the redwood forest on
hovercycles.  No, it wasn't filmed on this road, but it might have
been.  The pavement mostly follows the creek bed, which jigs briskly
right and left down the canyon floor.  It's barely wide enough in spots
for two cars to pass without scraping doorhandles, which makes the sign
about halfway down reading "ROAD NARROWS" my wife's second favorite road
sign of the trip.  (Her first favorite is one on Highway 1 reading "End
Scenic Route," immediately before the road burst out of a cluster of
pine trees and presents a staggering vista of folded sandstone cliffs to
the left, a broad silver beach to the right, and the redwood-covered
hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in the distance.)

On this road, I decided to push the car a bit more than I had
previously.  There are a few sections where you can see just far enough
ahead down the canyon, through the redwoods and the open ferny
streambed, to pick an apex a little over the centerline, knowing there's
no oncoming traffic.  Second and third gear, shove the Spica lever all
the way down as you round the apex and the rear end steps out smartly,
the front wheels countersteer and the car glides over toward the next
corner, then *hard* on the brakes, blip the throttle, double-clutch and
the lever slips gracefully, sensually into second without a grind and
you rocket up, out, over the road at the exit.  Trees, cliff sides,
exposed roots of ferns and shrubs scooted by overhead as we echoed the
roar of the twin cam down the canyon.

The road eventually levels out and leads to our next stop, Hallcrest
Winery.  The parking lot is just off the road, and as our little train
of cars began pulling in behind us, we noticed smoke pouring off the
brakes of the Bentley.  Berry was doing a masterful job of wrestling
that 6000-pound car down the narrow, twisting road, but then he's been
on the tour with me several times before in the same car and knows what
to expect.  The walk from the parking lot to Hallcrest crosses a
glorious vineyard, grape leaves yellow-green in the late summer sun,
with the nearly black limbs of the surrounding redwoods making a soft
skyline in the distance; red-barked madrones, their olive-colored
foliage set off against the redwoods, marked the boundary of the
vineyards.  Hallcrest specializes in organic wines, most made without
sulfites and all made without pesticides; they also stay to the more
traditional California grape selection of cabernet, merlot, zinfandel
and barbera.  They were tasting the oldest wines of the tour, a '91 and
a '92 cabernet that were both quite good, full-bodied and intense
without being harsh.  

I "warned" the folks at Hallcrest about the upcoming Alfa Club tour, and
they suggested that if I call in advance and talk to the Schumachers
(John and his wife, not Michael and Ralf), we can have our picnic on
site and they'll set up a winery tour as well.  

We left the Hallcrest parking lot and headed up Highway 9 for the last
leg of the trip, up to the White Cockade and then over the hill to
home.  That's a short, but final, third installment...

- --Scott Fisher
  Sunnyvale, California

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