Even the silence is different here. Despite a woodpecker working furiously on the eaves of a not-too-distant water tower and the buzz of tractors trolling, the quiet--like the canopy of fog--settles around you, pulls you in and ultimately disorients you. I wake early to a dense, poetic mist on the vineyards and the local folk and bluegrass show "Humble Pie." I make some coffee and toast and watch the tractors and men in dungarees, at first startled by the activity; the view looks like a watercolor in motion. The fog gradually trails off, and when I check the clock it's already past noon. It would be enough to stay right here--as I'm sure many do--making a journey of simply this pastoral view, sitting on this wraparound porch for hours, drifting.
Time Stands Still
Or seems to. In the Anderson Valley, slow is beautiful.
Some destinations are distinguished by their remoteness; others by their incantatory ruggedness; still others by their mystery. The Anderson Valley, which runs about 25 miles from Yorkville to Navarro in Northern California's Mendocino County, is characterized by a little bit of all of that. On the way in you can't see much of it from the road--maybe a plume of smoke from someone's fireplace just above the ridgeline, possibly a lone jogger. That road in tells its own oblique stories: a little house collapsed in on itself, its chimney bricks spilled like a derailed toy train; the uneven patchwork of gently sloping vineyards; aloof sheep grazing, egrets strolling; a stand of burnt and broken trees. Alongside, the skeletons of new wood-framed buildings rise, and freshly painted wine-tasting rooms pop up at intervals.
Once little more than a series of stagecoach stops from Cloverdale to the coast and known for apples, prunes and peaches, the Anderson Valley has survived killer frosts, biblical floods and Prohibition. It is physically breathtaking, but physically demanding. The grapes that are now grown here are tough enough to weather inclement conditions, and so are the people--the loggers, the self-described hippies, the wine folks, the farmers and the urban refugees who have cultivated this place and continue to carefully tend its character. Which is why some locals are still surprised at even incremental change--upscale tasting rooms, notions shops, showplace homes--in a valley that is difficult to get to and difficult to depart.
My otherworldly lodgings are just north of Philo proper, at Handley Cellars, on winemaker Milla Handley's 30-acre Estate Vineyard. It's on the other side of what she calls the "twisties," 20-some miles of rolling two-lane road that can discourage those souls made queasy by a waltzing set of bends and turns that feel like an elaborate digression. It's the stretch you hit if you're driving in from Oakland or San Francisco, by way of the 101 north to Highway 128, the main drag through the valley. On my way here the day before, I passed billboards advertising September's county fair, the venerable Gowan's Oak Tree Fruit Stand and its Burma Shave-style signage, and the Grange No. 669, which functions as a multipurpose town hall and headquarters for the area's NPR stations.
Once I got to the turnoff for the Apple Farm in Philo--which along with an opulent orchard is home to a cooking school I'd attended a couple of years ago--I knew I wasn't too far from Handley Cellars. The winery sits at the base of Holmes Ranch, where a cluster of historic wood buildings remains--the barn and water tower, as well as the ranch house where I'd be staying. I arrived just as the light began to wane, and there was Handley herself, a silhouette with flapping skirt, waiting at the wide curve of the drive with the key. The apartment--decorated with folk art from around the world, the beds covered with handmade quilts--overlooks one of the winery's working vineyards. There was a bowl of fruit on the dining-room table, and fresh coffee beans (and a grinder) on the kitchen counter, as well as a loaf of local Bruce Bread--deep brown, studded with raisins and nuts--for morning toast. All touches that said: Make yourself at home.
Milla Handley tells stories of her first years here that are as twisty as the road leading into the valley. And in this, her 25th year in the business, she's accumulated all manner of tales. She's been here long enough to see how dramatically it has changed: how it has evolved from a region considered inhospitable to grapes and thus to winemakers into one that is producing world-class Pinots, Rieslings and Sauvignon Blancs. After coffee on the porch of the ranch house, I make my way down the dirt path to the winery's sunny tasting room. It's already busy, but Handley is gracious enough to clear off a chair in her small office so we can talk awhile.
