Wine and Japanese Garden - 8/11/2016

Today we headed back up into the Santa Cruz mountains to visit some wineries and a Japanese garden.  Our first stop was the Thomas Fogarty winery located in Woodside just of off Skyline Blvd.  It was originally a 360 acre estate owned by Dr. Thomas J. Fogarty, Sr.  Dr. Fogarty was the inventor of the balloon catheter and developed the technique of using it to remove blood clots from arteries and for angioplasty.  He also invented the Stent-Graft which is used for repairing aneurysms.  Dr. Fogarty became interested in wine and in the late 1970s started planting grape vines on some of the land of his estate.  Today about 30 acres of the estate is used for vineyards and the winery and the other 330 acres is set aside as an open space preserve.

Here is a photo of the entrance to the winery.

And here is a photo of one of the rooms in the winery with the holding tanks for wine.

We proceeded into the tasting room to sample their wines.  Have to say they do have very fine wines and we ended up buying a couple of bottles to take with us.

The location is spectacular as they are right on top of the Santa Cruz ridge.  Here are some photos I took showing you what it was like.

The small vineyard above is the Albutom vineyard and is less then a half acre.  The name is an acronym for All But Tom as the day they planted this vineyard in 1981, Dr. Tom Fogarty was away at the hospital.

Our next stop was the Hakone Estate and Japanese Gardens in Saratoga.  This is one of the oldest Japanese gardens in the western hemisphere.  In 1915, San Francisco philanthropists Oliver and Isabel Stine attend the Panama-Pacific Exposition, and after visiting the Japanese Pavilion, Isabel fell in love with Japan and decided to build her own private Japanese estate and gardens.  They proceeded to buy 15 acres so they could build their dream project.  At the end of the Exposition, they bought several pieces of the Japanese Pavilion.  Then in 1917, Isabel and her son sailed to Japan to come up with some ideas for their garden.  Later in 1917 construction began and was completed in 1918.  The garden passed thru several sets of owners until 1966 when it was bought by the city of Saratoga.  Here is a photo of the entrance gate from the original Japanese Pavilion.

These were interesting little trees with very red bark.

And here you can see the paths leading into the garden.

Complete with a little waterfall.

I climbed the steps up to the main house and from the porch took this photo of the garden showing the pond with a bridge across it and a tea pavilion on the other side.

Another shot of the pond

Some of the Koi in the pond.

Here is a photo taken from the tea pavilion looking up at the main house

And a closer view of the waterfall.

There were a lot of paths thru the gardens and up into the hills above it.  They had a nice a nice picnic area off to the side which we took advantage of before heading off for our next stop.

Our next stop was the Mountain Winery also in Saratoga.  This is the original Paul Masson La Cresta winery that dates back to 1905.  Paul Masson is credited as one of the vintners that put California on the wine map when he won the Paris Award at the Paris Expo of 1900 and it was his sparkling wine that was the first American wine served in the White House.

However, shortly after it was finished the winery was in ruins as a result of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.  By 1907, a new winery was back up and operating and featured a Spanish 12th Century portal that they had "rescued" from the ruin of St, Patrick's Cathedral in San Jose.  Here is a photo of that portal which serves as the entrance to the winery.

Unfortunately, Pat's knee were really giving her problems and so we had to abandon the long walk to the winery.  I did get this photo of the amphitheater that they built 1958 that has hosted the likes of Diana Ross, Ringo, Willie Nelson and Ray Charles.

From the entrance road to the winery we could see some nice little country houses on the hills below us that would be great for a weekend getaway.

This one is ring shaped with a central courtyard.  According to Zillow it's a 5 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom, 6,137 sq. ft. home that they estimate would sell for $4.5 million.

We next headed to the Cooper- Garrod Vineyard, also in Saratoga.  This is a small family run winery that originally started out as a farm and apricot orchard in 1893 owned by the Garrod family,  In 1941, George Cooper married Lousie Garrod but nothing much changed.  George became a P-47 pilot during WW II and after the war became a test pilot for NASA.  After his retirement in 1973, he started growing grapes and making wine as a hobby.  He got so good at it that his friends convinced him to go commercial and Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyards was born.  Some of his wine labels are interesting as they reflect his test pilot background as in this example which goes by the name of F-86 Sabre Jet and is a 1/3 Cabernet Sauvignon, 1/3 Cabernet Franc, 1/3 Merlot blend.

This winery was  considerably different than the other two we had visited.  In this case they have a dirt parking lot with the winery on one side and a horse back riding stable on the other all run by various members of the family.  Here is the main building.

And the tasting room.

And folks heading out on a trail ride thru the vineyards.

What would be fun is that on Sundays they have a wine tasting ride.  You go out for a one-hour horseback ride thru the vineyards, then you try some wines in the tasting room and then you have a breakfast buffet.

That was it for today, tomorrow we drive over the Golden Gate bridge into Marin County and up to Point Reyes for a farm tour and cheese tasting.