Wandering the hilly, narrow cobblestone streets in our home base of Montalcino, Italy, a Medieval city of interlocking passageways, steps and alleyways curving around and through and behind and beyond the main square, I reminded myself I was walking through history spanning eight hundred years. Stopping for lunch, I ordered a glass of the house wine. A bottle arrived at …
At a time when COVID-19 keeps us from traveling overseas, I enjoyed some travel vicariously by reading about a vineyard in Tuscany while tasting some of their organic wines. While it was a poor substitute for actually walking the rows, smelling the breeze blowing over the 25 hectare hillside estate, and touring the cantina, the experience was improved by tasting the wines.
I’ve stayed in lots of luxurious and unique hotel rooms around Southern California, but I’ve never stayed in one that sits amongst lush vineyards. That is until this past weekend when I experienced South Coast Winery Resort & Spa.
Adam Sholder (a.k.a. The Counselor) has no discernable talents and glides through life on luck and good fortune. With a “What’s the worst that could happen?” attitude, he prefers to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. When he’s not traversing the Arctic tundra, canoeing through the jungles of Panama, or wandering the streets of Havana, he can be found in Los Angeles, where he lives with his Emmy Award-winning wife, Vanessa Lapato. Together, they wrote, produced, and directed the television pilot, “Starland P.C.” Adam is also a co-host on the popular “Cutting Room Movie Review” Podcast, and is currently adapting a movie version of the Tony Award-winning play, “Fortune’s Fool” with co-writer Benedick Bates, producer Richard Reid, and director Gary Oldman.
Anne Z. Cooke, a travel and adventure writer, covers the world from digs in Los Angeles and a log cabin in the Rocky Mountains. A regular writer for the Tribune News Service, a wire service, her stories appear in travel and lifestyle publications in the U.S. and internationally. A some-time blogger and columnist, she covers a range of topics, ranging from luxury lodging to Arctic exploration and wildlife conservation, always with an eye out for the back story.
These range from city touring, museum-loitering, temple-climbing, horseback riding, spa-lingering and volcano-watching to mountain climbing, glacier-skiing, river rafting, backpacking and float-plane fishing. Her byline has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Westways, Backpacker, MotorHome, Travel 50 & Beyond, the Miami Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.