Posts in category Napa & Sonoma Wine Country


Vineyards by the pond at Cornerstone, Sonoma Valley, California
California & USAExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine Country

Autumn, amongst the vines of Sonoma Valley

Sonoma County, California on a late October afternoon. Rows upon rows of golden, burnt umber vines stretching along the valley and over the hillsides. Overhead, a deep, sapphire sky, kissed every so often with small puffs of cotton wool clouds. …

Read more 0 Comments
By the Farmstead restaurant, Napa Valley, St Helena, California USA
California & USAExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine Country

Sampling and sipping in California’s Napa Valley!

For me, one of life’s greatest pleasures is being able to eat al fresco, shaded by a canopy of leaves, a gentle breeze cooling the air under a sun drenched, cornflower blue sky. Delicious food, wine and most importantly good company are the only ingredients …

Read more 0 Comments
Napa Vineyards & spring California Poppies, Napa Valley, California. USA
California & USAExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine Country

Spring flowers and blossoms among the Napa Valley vines

Every year at this time the air smells just that bit fresher, newly unfurled leaves seem greener than you recall, the daffodils are just that bit more dazzling, their trumpets bobbing up and down in the breeze as if announcing …

Read more 0 Comments
Califorinia winery in November
California & USAExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine Country

Golden shades of California’s Napa Valley in Fall

I am so very many miles from where I was living last November, almost 5000 miles from Lourmarin in Provence, France. Yet as I drive around the sun-drenched, autumnal vineyards of California’s Napa Valley the countryside is not so very …

Read more 0 Comments
Bistro Jeanty, Yountville, California, USA
California & USACarmelDanvilleExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine CountrySan FranciscoThe Bay Area

‘Provence’ in California

‘Provence’ in California?  After a ten hour plane journey how can it seem like you had never left, shouldn’t you be somewhere vastly different? Although there are obvious immense variances between Provence, where I had departed from and northern California, my destination, …

Read more 0 Comments
James ready to go in 1968 Lotus Cortina at Sonoma Raceway
California & USAExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine Country

’24 minutes du Mazda Miata’ at Sonoma Raceway, California; – zoom, zoom!

Cars, speed, racing and male testosterone………those same components that consumed the atmosphere at ’24 Heures du Mans’. Such sentiments were just as effervescent when I watched my lovely son, James, racing in the Sports Club of America, (SCCA), Mazda Spec …

Read more 0 Comments
Napa Valley vineyards, California, USA
California & USAExploreNapa & Sonoma Wine Country

The Napa Valley – ‘Provence’ in California?

I called my blog ‘sunflowers and shutters’ because they are a few of the images embedded in my heart when I think of southern France. In my 6 months there I actually never saw any sunflowers but I did yesterday, …

Read more 0 Comments