Marshall Pike takes us to the Roosevelt Elk – the largest game species in North America – at Redwood National and State Parks in Humboldt County, California.  CLICK HERE to see the elk.

The buttery, Italian, Bergo-styled compound of the Kenwood Inn & Spa in Sonoma County’s Valley of the Moon, disguises an opulence hidden within its arched entrance, but then much about this indulgent retreat is never revealed.

The inn’s finely appointed, spacious and yet understated Mediterranean guest rooms, decorated with imported fabrics and original oil paintings, are often hidden behind draped patios within its cloistered courtyard. Because of its intimacy, the Kenwood Inn has become a little-talked-about getaway for California’s glitterati, though well it should be.

Reopened after a $9 million expansion, the Kenwood Inn & Spa is one of those places with so much to keep one occupied that many guests never leave the privacy of its lushly landscaped grounds. This isn’t, however, a place to stay connected with the world, but to leave behind. Televisions and radios are purposefully not in the guest rooms, though a choice of soothing continental music is.

Central to the Inn is Caudalie, a spa that specializes in “vinotherapie, â€? a new approach to anti-aging dermo-cosmetic skincare developed in Bordeaux that employs the seeds discarded at the end of the grape harvest. The seeds are said to contain polyphenols which are believed to trap free radicals, providing cosmetic benefits.Â

The mild exfoliating effect of the “barrel bathâ€? at Caudalie results from the use of grape and red wine extracts and organic oils. A red vine bath, honey and wine bath, merlot wrap, energy wrap, crushed Cabernet scrup and sauvignon massage are among several other treatments provided at Caudalie.Â

Whether or not it works – and there’s a body of clinical studies to say it does – just spending a day at the spa is enough to make you feel and look better. The three and a half house you spend being scrubbed, bathed and wrapped or massaged as part of the Terrace Treatment take you, for $325, to another world. But then, the six and a half hour Vinotherapie Vacation, at $650, takes you to another galaxy. There’s so much to be done in a Vinotherapie Vacation that Caudalie can’t do it all in a day, it takes two. But, that’s a small price for a new you.

Of course, if you’d rather have the wine inside you than be inside it, the Kenwood Inn is in the center of the Sonoma Valley AVA (American Viticultural Appellation). Within minutes of the Kenwood Inn are some of America’s finest wineries including Adler Fels, Arrowood, Benziger, Buena Vista, Chateau St. Jean, Cline, B.R. Cohn, Gundlach Bundschu, Hanzell, Kenwood, Matanzas Creek, Landmark, Laurel Glen, Ravenswood, St Francis, Sebastiani and Viansa.
True to its passion for exception services, the Inn has joined with Schaefer Sonoma Vineyards to offer a remarkable Winemaker’s Package in which guests, with the assistance of the winery’s winemaker, blend their own barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon. Then, each year for three years, participants return to monitor the wine’s progress as it ages, is bottled and labeled. For $13,150, package guests get 24 cases of the personalized wine and six nights accommodations at the Kenwood Inn and Spa.

Imagine returning to the Inn after checking on the progress of your barrel, to luxuriate in an oversized saline pool in a setting that seems centuries old. You might retire to a mineral Jacuzzi pool in a fountain court or a saline spa inside a rustic mill house to consider whether you should introduce more mocha or earth flavors to your blend.

Then again, at breakfast the next morning, you might prefer just to ask for a mocha and accept that you got the wine right, as a three-course gourmet breakfast is included in the $375 to $700 charged for a room at the inn. Also included is a nightly manager’s reception featuring local wines and cheeses. Guests may also purchase lunch and dinner at the inn’s café, though the restaurants in nearby Glen Ellen and Sonoma are superb.

Clearly, the Kenwood Inn & Spa takes you to an extraordinary place where temporal troubles are removed physically and spiritually, but then perhaps we’re revealing too much.

What goes best with wine? Ask Californians and they’re likely to say, “golf.�

Just about anywhere you travel here, you’ll find two things in common… golf and wine, as California’s sun-kissed climate has made “The Golden Stateâ€? the ideal place to experience grapes and “birdies.â€? For every golf course in the state, there’s a commercial winery – about 800 of each – and all are worth tasting.Â

North of San Francisco lie the famous wine growing regions of Sonoma and Napa Counties. Rodney Strong, Jordan, Ferrari-Carano, Mondavi, Cakebread and Heitz are among the names of viticultural baronies found along Sonoma and Napa county roads. Their wineries, aging cellars and tasting rooms are impressive grand chateaus, aerie lookouts and surrealistic structures that that overlook a landscape scribed with rows of vineyards and lined with fairways.

Start your California golf and wine sojourn by visiting the California Welcome Center in Rohnert Park. The connection between California wine and golf is immediately evident adjacent to the Center at the 36-hole Mountain Shadows Golf Course and nearby Matanzas Creek winery, with its impressive gardens. One of the oldest wineries in California, Gundlach-Bundschu, is a 3-wood drive from Sonoma Golf Club, once declared “near perfectâ€? by golf legend Bobby Jones. And for a true California twist, sip California sparkling wine at the Korbel Champagne Cellars, then tee off through towering redwood trees at Northwood, an executive course designed by Alistair Mackenzie of Augusta National fame.Â

Four major “wine courses,� are found in the Napa Valley. Chardonnay Golf Club, across from the newly completed Kirkland Ranch winery, has the highest rated 36 holes in the region. Vineyards actually encroach upon Chardonnay’s greens. Or is it the other way around? Further up the Valley in the Atlas Peak wine-growing district is Napa’s preeminent golf resort, Silverado, with 36 holes that host the Senior PGA Transamerica Tournament, each October. Chimney Rock, off the Silverado Trail, is the only Napa Valley golf course actually on the property of a winery. If golf, wine and fine dining are appealing, drive over to the new Yountville Golf Club, then dine in one of Yountville’s exceptional restaurants.

Most San Francisco visitors think the wine country exists only to the north, but there’s actually much larger appellations east and south of San Francisco. Beyond the east hills is the vast Central Valley where most of California’s grapes are cultivated. The Lodi-Woodbridge region is its premiere appellation. Cool evening breezes off the Sacramento River Delta and hot days create a microclimate here that’s ideal for growing grapes and apparently for golf, too, as San Francisco Chronicle readers once rated the Dry Creek Ranch Golf Course in nearby Galt as the best public golf course in Northern California.Â

California’s Gold Country along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada gained fame for the gold rush of 1849, but today the region is gaining new reputation for its red wines and ports. In Murphy’s close to where Mark Twain wrote the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Ironstone Vineyards is winning awards for its library of best-selling wines, though its impressive seven-story winery and entertainment complex modeled after a 19th-century gold stamp mill is equally impressive with 10,000 square feet of caves, spectacular gardens that bloom with tens of thousands of brightly colored daffodils in springtime, a gold rush museum, and the world’s largest goldleaf nugget, a 44-pound crystalline beauty that’s housed in a special vault.

Minutes away in Angel’s Camp is Greenhorn Creek, a Robert Trent Jones Jr. “lay of the land� course that meanders through foothills and is decorated with historical artifacts from the gold rush era. Five historic gold mines are on the property, though most golfers strike it rich on the course’s signature sixth hole, a 210-yard par 3 to a peninsula green surrounded by water on three sides. But don’t let your gold country golf tour stop here, additional courses and wineries are located in Mariposa, Sonora, Amador and El Dorado Counties. Favorites are the challenging Pine Mountain Lake Golf Club near Groveland on Hwy 120 and the Wawona Golf Course in Yosemite National Park.

Southeast of Oakland in the Livermore Valley is the stunning, Greg Norman-designed, 18-hole Wente Golf Club that winds through working vineyards and beautiful foothill canyons. And, San José, at the southern end of San Francisco Bay though better-known today as the capital of Silicon Valley, features 18 fine wineries, including J. Lohr, Mirassou and Byington.Â

Several resort and public courses, including Jack Nicklaus’ 36-hole Coyote Creek Golf Club in Morgan Hill make one wonder what keeps those Silicon Valley tycoons in their offices and not out on a fairway. It’s even more perplexing when one realizes that Francis Duane and Arnold Palmer’s Link Course and Arthur Hills’ Ocean Course on the edge of the Pacific at Half Moon Bay are just minutes away, both among the most highly rated public courses in the U.S.

However, the granddaddy of all California public courses is, of course, the Pebble Beach Golf Links on the Monterey Peninsula. At $4755 per round, plus a cart at $25 per person, Pebble Beach may be public, but playing this great course, home to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, comes at a price. Less expensive alternatives to experiencing a Monterey Peninsula ocean course vary from the Links at Spanish Bay (at $250 + $25 cart) to the very affordable Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Links which is only $35 midweek and $40 on weekends. This gem of a municipal course has sweeping views of the Pacific from several of its holes. Two challenging courses, Bayonnet and Black Horse, recently opened to the public on the former Fort Ord military post, priced from $57 to $128.Â

Of course, with 18 great golf courses on the Monterey Peninsula and in the Carmel Valley (not all are open to the public), you may not have time to taste the area’s great wines and that would be worse than a double bogey, as with 30 wineries covering 40,000 acres, Monterey County has as much wine growing country as Napa, Burgundy and Bordeaux combined! That’s a lot of wine tasting possibilities, so you might want to begin in the Carmel Valley where six boutique wineries are within a short drive of the Rancho Canada, Quail Lodge and Carmel Valley Ranch golf courses.

California’s Central Coast has two other great wine-growing regions. San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties comprise California’s “Cote d’Azur� which produces some of the most buttery and classic of California Chardonnays from the Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Maria and Santa Ynez appellations. Classic golf is found at Black Hills and Avila Beach in SLO County, while Santa Barbara boasts Robert Trent Jones, Jr.’s Rancho San Marcos Golf Course and the secluded River Course at The Alisal in Solvang.

Southern California also has its wine country. Temecula in the Inland Empire, to the southeast of Los Angeles, is Southern California’s most prominent wine-growing district, with the Ted Robinson and Dick Rossen-designed Temecula Creek Inn Golf Resort and Ron Fream’s Redhawk Golf Club among the area’s most prominent courses. Thirteen wineries flourish here in a perfect balance of geography, microclimate and well-drained soil.  Just like Southern California’s famous golf courses, its wines are surprisingly complex, influenced by respected winemakers. There’s even a Callaway in Temecula’s bag of wineries.Â

Speaking of Callaway, the famous golf club manufacturer is located nearby in northern San Diego County not far from the prestigious Four Seasons Aviara, La Costa and Rancho Bernardo golf resorts and not far from several great wineries including Orfila Vineyards, known for its Merlots. With 25% of the world’s golf manufacturers based here, San Diego County has the largest concentration of golf manufacturers in the world. Could the 90 diverse courses to be played in San Diego County be the reason they’ve located here? Perhaps its San Diego’s legendary weather with average daily temperatures at 70.5 F/ 21.4 C, or its seemingly endless sunny days. Â

No, it must be California wines that have attracted them, as nothing seems to go better with golf in California, than wine.

Carmen Kozlowski carried a pot from her house to the farm store. As she passed, the grandmotherly figure stopped and chatted easily with visitors to her farm while they enjoyed a picnic lunch. Soon, the discussion about the genial winter day got around to how the Kozlowski Farm had become a travel destination.Like many other California farms, ranches, orchards and vineyards, the Kozlowski Farm in Sonoma County didn’t start out to be a tourist attraction, but economics and a taste for homemade products fresh from the farm transformed it into one of the state’s best places to stop.