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Fine Wines and a Fabulous Inn in Fair Play

The great room at Lucinda's Country Inn in Fair Play, California

 

Driving along winding, two-lane roads lined with vineyards on my way to Lucinda’s Country Inn in Fair Play, I fell behind a pick-up truck with a bumper sticker that read, “Napa Makes Auto Parts – El Dorado County Makes Wine.” The apparent quip against the more well-known wine region is gaining traction.

Lucinda's County Inn at dusk

When Lucinda and Daryl Sullivan bought the property to build their bed and breakfast inn in 1997, there were just six wineries in Fair Play. There are now 30 wineries in the region, 60 total wineries in El Dorado County, and dozens more nearby in the neighboring Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley.

Tasting room patio at Skinner Vineyards

The Sullivans first fell in love with Fair Play in the mid-1960s when they came up to drive car rallies around the region. Looking for paper plates tacked to trees that marked the route, they followed country roads through gorgeous landscapes that alternated between dense forests and rolling hills. “All the roads connect in loops,” explained Lucinda.

Those same interconnected roads now serve as tasting routes through a burgeoning wine region producing about 3,000 cases a year. Windwalker Vineyards and Winery lies just up the road from the inn and offers a lovely tasting room with good wines and a shady deck for picnicking. A little further up the road, Skinner Vineyards sits at the top of a hill offering commanding views and exceptional wines from a family that first began producing wines in the Sierra Foothills in 1861.

Outdoor deck at Lucinda's Country Inn

Centrally located along the winetasting routes, Lucinda’s Country Inn provides a perfect base for exploring the wines and beauty of the region. Designed and built as a bed and breakfast in the early 2000s, the inn has a contemporary style with many eco-friendly considerations. Solar panels provide 90% of the inn’s electricity and tankless water heaters provide instant hot water. The inn’s cottage and four spacious guest suites each offer pillow-top king beds with separate seating areas, remote-controlled gas fireplaces, flat screen televisions with HD DirecTV and DVD players, private decks, well-stocked kitchenettes with complimentary sodas, waters, and snacks, and spacious baths with upscale amenities. One of the suites and the cottage feature sunken spa tubs; another suite offers a tiled soaking tub.

Vineyard Suite at Lucinda's Country Inn

A large common-area great room features an inviting fireplace flanked with leather couches. Just outside on the deck, an outdoor fireplace is ringed by cozy patio furniture with shade umbrellas and an outdoor bar. The inn is nestled on 11 quiet, forested acres with more outdoor seating scattered around the inn, a bocce ball court, and a charming creek that was once claimed by gold prospectors.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the innkeepers serve complimentary wine and snacks. A home-cooked breakfast is served each morning. The inn also hosts periodic farm-to-fork dinners and murder mystery dinners.

Fair Play Cottage at Lucinda's County Inn

When I arrived to the inn, I was warmly welcomed by Lucinda and Daryl and the aroma of chili simmering on the stove. My room, the Vineyard Suite, was decorated in shades of cream, sage green, and lavender and featured a double-sided, see-through gas fireplace connecting the bedroom and living room. The overstuffed furniture makes an ideal spot to curl up with a glass of wine in front of the fire. A step-up arched entry to the bedroom and a skylight over the bed adds a touch of romance. The large windows in the living room and bedroom offered peaceful views of the forest. The kitchenette was thoughtfully and generously stocked. The bath featured a spacious shower the innkeepers comically refer to as the “human carwash” for all of its nozzle options.

Lucinda's Country Inn's Strawberry Yogurt Parfait

In the sunny dining room the next morning, I was treated to one of Lucinda’s breakfast specialties, Country Huevos Casserole. Served in an oval ramekin, the dish featured scrambled eggs topped with melted cheese and the delicious chili that had been simmering the night before. The dish was paired with a strawberry yogurt parfait and warm lemon almond scones. It was the perfect start to a crisp fall morning and full day of exploring Fair Play’s wineries.

Lucinda's Country Inn

6701 Perry Creek Rd.
Fair Play, CA 95684
530-409-4169
www.lucindascountryinn.com

A Secret Garden in Santa Barbara

Wood Thrush cottage at Secret Garden Inn & Cottages in Santa Barbara

 

When I first visited the Secret Garden Inn & Cottages a few years ago, I arrived to the delicious smell of a cardamom-spiced bread that the owner, Dominique Hannaux, had just pulled out of the oven. Standing in her kitchen, Dominique wore glasses and an apron over a t-shirt and a long, flowing skirt. Wiry tendrils of gray hair had escaped her ponytail and were floating around her face. She spoke with a French accent and looked every bit the part of a slightly eccentric, French painter.

Secret Garden Inn's garden patio and cottages

Dominique broke off a morsel of the bread for me to sample and explained that she hadn’t followed a recipe, that she had just been experimenting. The sample was divine.

Meadowlark guest room at Secret Garden Inn & Cottages

Dominique learned to cook watching her father and her grandmother cook while growing up in France. She loved to read and poured through recipes in her grandmother’s cookbooks. When she was 17, she cooked her first Christmas dinner under the direction of her grandmother, whose health had begun to fail. At 20, when Dominique had a place of her own, she began to cook for friends. “I discovered I loved it,” said Dominique, “It’s a little like painting: a little of this, a little of that.”

Dining room at the Secret Garden Inn & Cottages

She cooked on sailboats for a while and then eventually made her way to Santa Barbara, where she bought the Secret Garden Inn and Cottages in 1999. Secluded behind high hedges and nestled amid lovely gardens and pathways, the inn is located in a residential neighborhood, not far from Old Mission Santa Barbara and State Street. The main house, a simple 1905 farmhouse, consists of a living room, a country dining room, kitchen, and two guest rooms. Six additional guest rooms are scattered among the garden cottages, each with their own private entrance. Named for various birds, the rooms have a homey feel with cheerful colors, floral patterns, and an eclectic assortment of furnishings. All of the rooms offer private baths, televisions with DVD players, and wireless internet. Many of the rooms have clawfoot tubs; five of the cottage rooms also have private decks with small Jacuzzi tubs.

Garden patio beneath the shade of the persimmon tree

Beneath the sprawling branches of a persimmon tree, a garden patio with café tables and chairs is an ideal spot to enjoy breakfast or a glass of wine. One of Dominique’s most popular recipes, her persimmon and orange nut bread, is made with fresh persimmons she picks from the tree when they begin to ripen in the fall.

Dominique's ingredients for French toast

The inn serves wine and hors d’oeuvres on Fridays and Saturdays from 5 to 6 p.m. Sweets and hot water for tea are set out each evening at 7 p.m. Each morning, Dominique prepares and serves a gourmet breakfast featuring her quiches, crepes, fresh-baked scones, muffins, sweet breads, fresh fruit, coffee, tea and juices. Guests have their choice of enjoying breakfast in their room or private patio, in the dining room, or on the garden patio.

When I last visited, Dominique treated me to French toast and shared with me her easy recipe for making it. “The best things are the easiest things,” she said.

Dominique's French toast

In a bowl, she whisked two eggs with half and half and a generous dash of cinnamon and then dunked day-old slices of Brioche into the mixture. With melted butter sizzling in a pan, she transferred the slices to the hot pan. Once brown, she flipped the slices to brown the other side. To finish, she transferred the French toast to a plate and sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

Secret Garden Inn & Cottages
1908 Bath Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
805-687-2300 / 800-676-1622
www.secretgarden.com