Mark and Jen Bellingham, both 47, of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, spent the better part of Saturday afternoon doing approximately 78 miles per hour down a two-lane road through the Anderson Valley wine region in their leased Porsche Cayenne, screaming “GET OFF THE FUCKING ROAD” out the driver’s-side window at every vehicle they passed whose driver had not, like them, consumed approximately twelve ounces of pinot noir at three separate tasting rooms over the preceding four hours.
Today's unwitting financial backer: Squatty Potty — you can open it if you want.
The Bellinghams had begun their day, according to Jen’s Instagram Stories, with what she captioned a perfect little tasting flight at a boutique winery near Boonville, where she and Mark had shared a six-pour flight, a charcuterie board, and what they described to the sommelier as “a real moment.” They had then proceeded, in defiance of all known principles of vehicular safety, professional adult responsibility, and the laws of the state of California, to two additional wineries, where they had each consumed an additional five-pour flight, two glasses of “just the rosé,” and what Mark referred to, with a wave of his hand, as “a splash of the cab, just to taste.”
By 4:12 p.m., when they passed a Toyota Sienna driven by a Ukiah mother of three named Rosalinda Vasquez, Jen Bellingham was leaning out of the passenger window with her ash-blonde hair whipping in the wind, holding up a single perfectly manicured middle finger, and shouting, in a voice that Vasquez later described to her husband as “the voice of a woman who has never once in her life been told no by anyone, in any context, for any reason.”
“MOVE, BITCH,” Jen Bellingham screamed.
You've read this far. The least you can do is buy the "Still Weak As Shit" tee.
Vasquez was driving the speed limit. Vasquez had three children in the car. Vasquez was returning from a soccer tournament in Fort Bragg. Vasquez was completely sober.
“Some asshole in a Porsche flew past us doing, like, ninety,” Vasquez said later. “The woman in the passenger seat was screaming. The man in the driver’s seat was screaming. I could see they had wine glasses in the cup holders. Actual glasses, not plastic. I don’t even know how they were keeping them upright.”
The Cayenne disappeared around the next curve at a speed Vasquez estimated, conservatively, at “fully insane.”
The Bellinghams, who have between them a Stanford MBA, two seats on local nonprofit boards, and a 4-year-old daughter named Atlas, spent the next ninety minutes of their drive home conducting what observers along Highway 128 would later describe as “a kind of rolling, screaming, two-person grievance about other people on the road.” They yelled at a man in a Subaru Outback for going the speed limit. They yelled at a woman in a Honda Civic for driving “like a fucking grandma.” They yelled at a cyclist. They yelled at a deer. They yelled, briefly and without context, at a sign.
“These fucking people,” Mark Bellingham said at one point, gesturing furiously at a Prius ahead of him that was, by every measurable standard, simply existing on a road. “They just — they have no fucking idea how to drive up here. They come up here and they just clog everything up.“
He was not asked, by anyone, who they were, or what was being clogged.
Jen Bellingham, who was at this point checking her reflection in the visor mirror and reapplying lipstick at 74 miles per hour, made a sound of vigorous agreement.
“Get off the road if you can’t handle the road,” she said, to no one.
Mark Bellingham nodded. He took a deep, restorative sip from the wine glass nestled in his cup holder. He passed a delivery van on a blind curve.
The wine glass remained, somehow, upright.
The Bellinghams’ afternoon is not, sources confirm, a one-time occurrence. According to friends, family members, neighbors, and the staff of three separate Anderson Valley wineries who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have all, at some point, served the Bellinghams, this is approximately what every Saturday looks like. The Bellinghams come up. The Bellinghams drink. The Bellinghams drive home. Other people, on the road, do their best to live through it.
“They’re regulars,” said one tasting-room manager, who has been pouring for the couple for six years. “They come in maybe once a month. They spend a lot of money. They’re, you know, fine while they’re in here. They’re charming. They’re tipping well. They’re complimenting the wine. And then they leave. And then I watch them get into the car. And then I watch them drive out of the parking lot. And then I go inside and I pour myself something.”
She paused.
“I have, like, twice, said something,” she added. “I said, are you guys good to drive? They laughed. Jen put her hand on my arm. She said, honey, we drive better with a little something in us. I have not said anything since. I don’t know what to do. I am the manager of a tasting room. I am not the manager of these people’s lives. I have my own kids. I have my own car. I cannot be responsible for the Bellinghams of Pacific Heights.”
The Bellinghams, when reached for comment Sunday morning at their home, were unavailable. Their nanny, Esperanza, answered the door and said the couple was “resting” and would not be available until the afternoon. When asked whether she was aware of how her employers spent their Saturdays, Esperanza looked at this reporter for a long moment, said only “I know what I know,” and closed the door.
Mark Bellingham, eventually reached by phone at 3 p.m., expressed genuine confusion about the premise of this article.
“I don’t — what?” he said. “What are you — what are you asking me? We were on a wine tour. We were in a wine region. You’re allowed to drink wine in a wine region. That’s the point of the wine region. What kind of question is that?”
He was asked whether he had driven afterward.
“Of course I drove afterward,” he said. “How else were we going to get home. What were we going to do, take a Lyft? Up there? From Boonville? Be serious.”
He was asked whether he had been over the legal limit.
There was a long pause.
“I am a very experienced driver,” Mark Bellingham said.
He was asked, again, whether he had been over the legal limit.
“I drove safely,” he said.
He was asked, again.
“Look,” he said. “I have done this drive a hundred times. A hundred fucking times. I know that road better than anybody. I know every curve. I know every turn. I drive better up there with a couple glasses in me than most people do completely fucking sober, because I am relaxed, and I am focused, and I am present, and I am not, like, white-knuckling it like some, like, Ukiah mom who is freaking out about a fucking elk crossing.”
He was asked whether he was aware that he had, on multiple occasions Saturday, screamed obscenities at other drivers.
“They were in the way,” he said.
He was asked whether the other drivers had been doing anything illegal or unsafe.
“They were in the way,” he said again, more loudly. “They were going thirty fucking miles per hour on a road where you can do sixty. That’s dangerous. That’s a hazard. I have been trying for years to get people to understand that slow drivers are the actual problem on these roads, and nobody fucking listens, and now you’re calling me to ask about my driving? Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?”
He hung up.
Jen Bellingham, reached separately twenty minutes later, was warmer.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, when the nature of the article was explained to her. “Are you okay? You sound stressed. You should come up sometime. We’ll take you out. Anderson Valley is magical. The light up there — you would die. I’ll send you the names of the wineries we love. Mark and I are practically locals at this point. We know everybody.”
She was asked whether she was concerned about driving home after several hours of wine tasting.
“Oh, please,” she said. “We’re so careful. We pace ourselves. We eat. We have, like, you know, the cheese plate, and the meats, and we make sure we’re, like, hydrating. People make such a thing about this. Sober drivers are the ones causing accidents. It’s a fact. Look it up. Sober drivers are distracted. They’re on their phones. They’re tired. They’re, like, anxious. A glass of wine just takes the edge off. It makes you a better driver. Studies have shown this.”
She was asked which studies.
“Studies,” she said. “European studies.”
She was asked where she had read about these studies.
“Oh, you know,” she said breezily. “Around.”
A 2023 report from the California Highway Patrol noted that fatal crashes involving impaired drivers in the state’s wine-producing regions had increased 31% over the preceding five years, with the largest contributor being what the report called “weekend visitors operating high-end SUVs on unfamiliar two-lane roads at high rates of speed following multiple tasting-room visits.” The report did not name the Bellinghams specifically.
It did not need to.
It described them, in fairly clinical language, for approximately fourteen pages.
The Bellinghams are scheduled to return to wine country next Saturday. They have already made reservations. The first stop is the boutique winery near Boonville. The flight is the six-pour. The charcuterie board is the regular. The drive afterward will be approximately seventy-two miles, on two-lane country roads, through a region where the speed limit is, in most places, thirty-five.
The Bellinghams have done this drive a hundred times.
Other people, sources confirmed, have done it once or twice, with their children in the car, on their way home from a soccer tournament, doing the speed limit, hoping nothing comes around the next curve too fast.
Atlas Bellingham, age 4, will be at home with the nanny.
She will not, this Saturday, be in the car.
The Bellinghams, when asked about this earlier in the week by a friend, said it was because she gets carsick on the curves.