McLaren GT – Sideways in Sonoma

An epic excursion through California’s other wine country in the gentlemanly McLaren GT

- By Duncan Quinn

A wave of calm descended as my first round of hyper fresh briny oysters slid down. I was sitting at the Saltwater Oyster Bar in Inverness, a white clapboard ode to local ingredients with gastro-nautical chops, on a stretch of sleepy road in Marin County, California. Across the mists of Tomales Bay, past the siren curves of the McLaren GT calling me from the carpark, were my next pit stops, the more famous Hog Island Oysters and The Marshall Store.

My Mission Impossible for the weekend: escape from New York to indulge in an oenological expedition to Sonoma County, seeking out the finest wines known to humanity. All while piloting a grand tourer of the first order on the incomparable roads of the raggedy Marin coast, laying down a roadmap for eats, drives and drinks à la Sideways. It was to be a blast from San Francisco up through Mill Valley, Stimpson Beach, Inverness, Marshall, and Nick’s Cove to Bodega Bay. Following Route 1 as it twisted and turned along misty bays and ocean whitecaps, past multimillion-dollar oceanfront shacks on stilts.