Olive Oils and Hollywood Stars

We drove to Sonoma today for an olive oil tasting.  Captain and I usually do wine tastings, and we wanted to switch things up this year.  Very interesting flavors--we chose Hudson Vineyards Carneros Olive Oil. The gift shop also sold flavored salts--there were so many to pick from.  We bought the Applewood Salt and Australian Pink Salt. After taste-testing them, of course.  Then we ate lunch at the famous El Dorado Kitchen.  Despite the long wait, the fresh heirloom tomatoes really made my Brie-L-T taste like something from out of this world.  Maybe it was the outdoor dining and pleasantly mild California weather. 

We drove back across the valley for a special appointment at the winery of Francis Ford Coppola (yes, we saw him).  Maybe he has an airplane that some other company was thinking of buying.  That's why Captain knows the chief pilot, who gave us a pass into the back room for a premier tasting of their top tier wines (over $100 per bottle each).  And we liked them all!  So we bought several bottles thinking we could have a "Godfather" movie and wine party back in St. Joe.  They insisted on giving us a discount, plus they wouldn't let us pay for the tour or the tasting!  Even for the birthday boy, this was very special treatment.