Wine and racehorses are mere hobbies for many entrepreneurs, but for Jess Jackson, 79, both remain big business.
Perhaps they're not the first place you think of when it comes to wineries, but these four regions offer character and great wine, without the hoopla.
SONOMA, Calif. -- As NASCAR Sprint Cup prepares for a rare weekend off, the drivers battling for the 12th and final spot in the Chase for the Championship have a chance to pause -- and feel anxious.
SONOMA, Calif. -- It appears Danica Patrick is leaning strongly toward staying in the IndyCar Series now that Michael Andretti is in the process of taking full control of ownership at Andretti Green Racing (AGR).
Travelers don't always have to fight the masses and schlep overseas to find exotic vacation thrills.
It is getting interesting, the race for the final spot in the Chase. After 15 events this season, three drivers -- David Reutimann, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Kasey Kahne -- are all within 90 points of the 12th-place driver in the standings, Jeff Burton. So who will ultimately grab that 12th and final position that advances to the Chase? Let's break it down, driver by driver.
Don't look now, but Juan Pablo Montoya is currently 14th in the Sprint Cup standings, just 43 points out of the 12th and final spot in the Chase. He's also one of the hotter drivers on the circuit, having run off two straight top-10 finishes, giving him four in his past six races. In other words, NASCAR's highest-profile open-wheel convert could be on the verge of making a major jump in the standings with a victory this weekend on the road course at Sonoma, the sight of his first career Cup win and one of his favorite tracks on the circuit.
The Sprint Cup hits a road course for the first time this season on Sunday at Infineon Raceway -- a tight, 1.99-mile track in the wine country of Sonoma, Calif. It should be a showdown, sabers drawn, between Juan Pablo Montoya -- a fabulous road racer who has been learning to drive stock cars the past three years -- and Kyle Busch, a great stock car driver who suddenly became a winning road racer in NASCAR last year.
1,100 miles. Just the number seems daunting. Driving it all in one day, over nine hours with speeds upwards of 220-mph makes it nearly an impossible feat.
Professional golfers and hackers alike try all sorts of unusual things to avoid the dreaded three-putt: cross-handed grips, staggered stances, elongated putters. Jayson Woodbridge has his own trick. He swings with one hand.
Wine and racehorses are mere hobbies for many entrepreneurs, but for Jess Jackson, 79, both remain big business.
Perhaps they're not the first place you think of when it comes to wineries, but these four regions offer character and great wine, without the hoopla.
SONOMA, Calif. -- As NASCAR Sprint Cup prepares for a rare weekend off, the drivers battling for the 12th and final spot in the Chase for the Championship have a chance to pause -- and feel anxious.
SONOMA, Calif. -- It appears Danica Patrick is leaning strongly toward staying in the IndyCar Series now that Michael Andretti is in the process of taking full control of ownership at Andretti Green Racing (AGR).
Travelers don't always have to fight the masses and schlep overseas to find exotic vacation thrills.
It is getting interesting, the race for the final spot in the Chase. After 15 events this season, three drivers -- David Reutimann, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Kasey Kahne -- are all within 90 points of the 12th-place driver in the standings, Jeff Burton. So who will ultimately grab that 12th and final position that advances to the Chase? Let's break it down, driver by driver.
Don't look now, but Juan Pablo Montoya is currently 14th in the Sprint Cup standings, just 43 points out of the 12th and final spot in the Chase. He's also one of the hotter drivers on the circuit, having run off two straight top-10 finishes, giving him four in his past six races. In other words, NASCAR's highest-profile open-wheel convert could be on the verge of making a major jump in the standings with a victory this weekend on the road course at Sonoma, the sight of his first career Cup win and one of his favorite tracks on the circuit.
The Sprint Cup hits a road course for the first time this season on Sunday at Infineon Raceway -- a tight, 1.99-mile track in the wine country of Sonoma, Calif. It should be a showdown, sabers drawn, between Juan Pablo Montoya -- a fabulous road racer who has been learning to drive stock cars the past three years -- and Kyle Busch, a great stock car driver who suddenly became a winning road racer in NASCAR last year.
1,100 miles. Just the number seems daunting. Driving it all in one day, over nine hours with speeds upwards of 220-mph makes it nearly an impossible feat.
Professional golfers and hackers alike try all sorts of unusual things to avoid the dreaded three-putt: cross-handed grips, staggered stances, elongated putters. Jayson Woodbridge has his own trick. He swings with one hand.
The High School Musical 3 star hits speeds over 100 mph during a day at the track
Nibble your way through Charlotte, North Carolina, and you'll taste the New South. Shining on the Piedmont with a modern skyline and brimming with emerging restaurants, this is a city that savors the fresh and the new.
Up and down the garage, you hear it from drivers, from crew chiefs, from pit crew guys: They positively hate road course racing.
Downshift, brake, hit the mark, turn, up shift, accelerate, turn, brake. Five seconds -- maybe -- in the work day of a race car driver on a road course. And that's the easy part of racing. That doesn't even factor the metallic herd traversing the winding course, some among it predators capable of manipulating any mistake to create a precious passing opportunity.
Best Driver: Kyle Busch With a series-best five victories and 869 laps led, the younger Busch brother has been close to dominant in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing.
1. And your 2008 Cup champion will be...? After his road course win at Sonoma on June 22 there seems to be little that can stand in the way of Kyle Busch taking his first season title -- except, perhaps... Kyle Busch. With five wins in the first 17 races, the Shrub has excelled on just about every sort of venue, from Talladega's superspeedway to the Monster Mile at Dover, and he has a 67-point lead in the standings over second-place Jeff Burton.
Smoke climbed high into the sky Friday as firefighters struggled to contain two wildfires that combined near Big Sur in California, a fire official said.
Heading into Sunday's race at New Hampshire, an anonymous NASCAR driver shares his thoughts about the latest happenings in the circuit.
SI.com's Mark Beech offers the most intriguing news, notes and analysis fans need to know heading into each week's race.
Sondra Bernstein shocked Sonoma 10 years ago with her tiny, Cab-free restaurant, the Girl & the Fig. No Chardonnay even -- just Rhône wines (many locally grown and made) and a gutsy southern French menu fashioned out of the county's bounty. And at nearby Cafe La Haye, John McReynolds and Saul Gropman had started turning out stellar California-French dishes in a kitchen they could reach across.
Good luck getting a table for dinner at The Girl & the Fig Restaurant. It's in an old hotel on the town square in Sonoma, in the heart of California wine country. The menu features a pork chop you can eat with a spoon and a multilayered array of cheeses and charcuterie that destroys all willpower. Sondra Bernstein, who started the restaurant nine years ago, just opened a bed and breakfast down the street; has Big Pantry, a new high-end country store in town; owns the casual Fig Café a few miles away; started the Fig Foods line of fig-related processed foods; wrote a popular cookbook; and is getting ready to launch a catering business.
Heading for the Massachusetts Turnpike, a Mercedes sedan closes in on the back tire of my bicycle with an aggressive honk. Less than a mile of Boston's streets have designated bike lanes, and Commonwealth Avenue - where I'm trying to avoid construction sites and deep trolley tracks - is not one of them. "Stay close to me - this traffic circle might get hairy!" shouts Andrew Prescott, one of my guides. Dodging rush-hour traffic isn't easy, and with a few hours still to go on his Paul Revere Ride to Freedom tour, I'm wondering if I'd be happier straddling a horse.
Travel + Leisure scoured California's wine country to find one-of-a-kind boutiques and charming small-town stores. From Calistoga to Healdsburg, these eight spots are worth a visit.
Here are five drivers to watch this Sunday at Pocono.
Here are five things we learned on a sun-splashed, humid day at the most hallowed racetrack in the world:
When Fernando Ortega talks about the seven days and seven nights he spent in a Los Angeles County jail, he recalls the nine-foot-by-nine-foot cell he shared with three murderers, the "stinking urine smell," and finally, the magazine. "If it weren't for the magazine," he says, recalling the publication that distracted him from his menacing surroundings, "who knows what would have happened to me?"
SI.com's experts weigh in with their predictions for this Sunday's race in Sonoma, Calif.
Whether you're looking for mud baths or bike routes, a castle or just a good meal, Travel + Leisure steers you in the right direction on this easy drive from San Francisco to Calistoga, California.
Here are five things to keep on eye this weekend in New Hampshire, where the Cup boys will be racing on the Magic Mile on Sunday.
Sure, there are still 20 races to go until the Nextel Cup finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 18, but the 2007 regular season is already more than half over. With 10 races left until the start of the Chase, here's a look at the best and the worst of racing so far.
The long-term premise of the Car Of Tomorrow is simple: Create the same type of vehicle for each team to use, and everyone will start with the same opportunity to succeed on the racetrack. NASCAR's goal is to put the race back in the hands of the driver, not the team that has the most money or the manufacturer that can build the best car.
Here are five things we learned on Sunday at Sonoma.
Even before it opens at 8 a.m., a devoted group of epicurean pilgrims is already arriving, wheeling knee-high cooler bags toward the produce stands that assemble every Saturday in downtown San Francisco's Ferry Plaza.
When most entertain the idea of a car of tomorrow, gull-winged time machines and Firebirds that talk are often the first thoughts to spring to mind. NASCAR, however, envisioned something far different for its Car of Tomorrow: something safe and boxy that wouldn't look, what's the word, Swedish.
One weekend morning in 2002, Michael Brill had the sort of epiphany that commonly befalls successful businesspeople - particularly tech businesspeople who live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Fed up...
Eleventh-generation glassmaker Maximilian Riedel may have an antique pedigree, but he is a thoroughly modern man. Two years ago he created a sensation with his stemless “O” series glasses—a 21st-c...
Good luck getting a table for dinner at The Girl & the Fig Restaurant. It's in an old hotel on the town square in Sonoma, in the heart of California wine country. The menu features a pork chop you ...
THE LAW There's an added cost to buying fancy items--call it the bragging tax. But often the same quality and features can be found for less if you feel like evading that surcharge.
Do you need a pair of tickets to Springsteen? A bottle of wine? A fancy wristwatch?
As a boy, Jeff Bewkes dreamed of becoming the captain of a small ship. A fast ship, he says now. He'd do some unconventional thing that leads to a big ship, part of a fleet. He'd face the inevitable problems [caused by] the misactions of the others. And then ... somehow prevail.
It's an 85-degree day in September, and Mike Wood of Wood Family Vineyards in Livermore, Calif., is inspecting his 14 acres of merlot grapes. He wanders between the rows of vines, sampling grapes t...
For many, ringing in the New Year will involve making a toast. Some people find it intimidating -- especially in front of a crowd.
The property begins a few yards from the Mediterranean, wanders through fields and orchards, then climbs up a talus slope before ending at the base of a marble cliff.
Every few years, wine lovers anoint a country or region as their new darling. In the 1970s, it was Napa. Then came Sonoma, Chile, Australia and others from the New World.
Winemakers are often considered an odd lot. A good number of them hug trees, wear Birkenstocks, and so on. But there is a movement sweeping the wine world that makes Greenpeace look moderate. It's ...
An icon of fine eating is under siege: The U.S. foie gras industry is in crisis.
Many red wines today taste a little like Black Forest cake in a glass: dense, with gobs of fruit, a splash of black cherry, and a twist of vanilla. For that you can thank (or blame) Robert M. Parke...
Why San Francisco? We'll leave it to Tony Bennett to explain.
If not for Chuck Williams, your salads would be bereft of that splash of balsamic vinegar, your pasta might lack that oomph given by a shot of garlic from a garlic press, and holiday cookies might ...
Rudyard Kipling once pointed out San Francisco's one drawback: 'Tis hard to leave. That's still true today, even after the Internet bust that hit the Northern California economy so hard.
Want a hobby that enables you to learn a craft, spend time outdoors, and impress your friends? You have a lot of company. The number of wineries in the U.S. has doubled in the past 20 years to more...
Barb and Bruce McLeod don't need to "get away" as much as they used to. True, she's still a busy 56-year-old public relations exec and he remains a harried 58-year-old with a career in software sal...
They're sorry. So sorry. After making job offers to a slew of college and MBA students from the class of '01, many belt-tightening employers--including Cisco, Dell, and Intel--have suddenly asked t...
Finally, after years of dreaming about owning a sexy, head-turning sports car, I've got one. Each morning I strut out to my driveway in Southern California, give my black Volvo convertible a pat, a...
Liz Willette is a sales rep for Michael Skurnik, a wine importer and distributor in New York City. We gave her $100 to buy some wine--on the condition that she tell us what she chose.
We gave Parker Bosley, chef and co-owner of Parker's in Cleveland, $100 to buy some wine, on the condition that he tell us what he bought.
It's 11:30 on a hot June morning at Gallo's Frei Ranch vineyard in Sonoma County, and Gina Gallo, her streaky blond hair twisted up in a stub of a ponytail, is rushing into the tasting trailer. She...
If you think it's tough for the second generation in a family business, imagine the headaches in store for the third. It's enough to make the word "cousins" sound like a profanity.
OCCUPATIONS: Public relations consultant, computer-technology student
THE BEST JOB ON WALL STREET
When was the last time you sipped a flute of champagne? At a wedding? At an anniversary? Last New Year's Eve? Well, if you think of breaking out the bubbly only on special occasions, you're not alo...
It's Dec. 31, 1999. You're hosting the party of the millennium. When the clock strikes midnight, you raise a glass to toast the year 2000. Sadly, that glass is filled not with Dom Perignon but with...
$200 Vermont is all but booked for foliage season. So try Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The leaves are at their peak throughout October, and at $200 a weekend for two, a bed and breakfast costs 25...
It's a chilly afternoon in rural northwest Connecticut, and it's drizzling. I'm rounding a curve at 70 miles per hour, and my car is starting to spin out. I'm entering the second of three quick S t...
Finding the right wine to serve with summer foods is a lot trickier than shelling out for just the right Bordeaux to go with a roast veal dinner in winter. First, you probably don't want to spend t...
The number of bonded wineries in the U.S. has more than doubled, to over 1,400, in the past dozen years, partly because burned-out executives have been trading in the big-city life for pastoral toi...
First-class flying has hit a downdraft in the U.S. In the first flush of deregulation, airlines piled on amenities, from caviar to free helicopter flights between airport and downtown, in a competi...
Just a few years ago, wine bars were popping up across the U.S. from Chicago to Chattanooga. America was believed to be full of wine enthusiasts who would flock to places that provided a large vari...
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