red Vespa LX50On winery business I drive our 2005 Nissan Titan (best pickup truck I have ever owned) which gets about 14 mpg. When I have something big to haul I use a Ford F-550 diesel which gets 10 mpg. My wife commutes in a SAAB 9-2x which gets a solid 28 mpg. The kinderwagen is a BMW 528 — safe but wasteful for around-town commuting at 17 mpg on a good day.

I think gas could go to $4/gal here before the Summer is over. Or maybe I am having a mild “mid-life event”. Whatever. I picked up this cool red 2006 Vespa LX50 from the great folks (Roy & Johnna) at Revolution Moto in Santa Rosa. At better than 80 mpg I can be twice as smug as the average Prius driver (there’s a local horde of them). My wife says “and less comfortable” but I’m having a lot more fun.

It seems like I see a new scoot in Sonoma about once every week. Maybe by the end of the Summer there will be a whole bunch of scooters around town, and the Plaza will look a little more like the fictional town in Tuscany that Sonoma is sometimes compared to.

What (he asks rhetorically) does this have to do with wine and winemaking? Nothing, except that when I ride it to work I park it at the entrance to the alley leading to our Tasting Salon — to attract a little more attention. It works.