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I really hate the start of a new year.  In addition to all the resolutions that most likely will never come to fruition and performance evaluations at work there is the fact there are not very many holidays to take advantage of after just finishing the holiday blitz of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and [enter your celebrated end-of-year holiday here].  Not only that, there is the careful planning of your measly accrual of always-inadequate number vacation days for the entire year that must be rationed carefully.  That is, of course, if you’re from Europe where many countries have about 6 months of vacation and holiday time… Lucky!

However, here we are already approaching March and finally ready to hit our first wine country trip (of 3 planned so far) of the year.  I am so giddy, I feel like Clark Griswald pulling into Wally World.  In the early days of my career, I was a workaholic, quickly climbing the corporate ladder thinking that’s what would make me happy and what a successful person should strive for.  Probably something I learned growing up in the Greedy Eighties.  Along the way, I would just collect and carry-over vacation days thinking I was showing what a dedicated, corporate-citizen I was.  Sure, there was some reward by way of promotion, but with that came only more responsibility and you guessed it, more stress.  As a result, mental and physical health often suffered as stress levels soared.  One of my first realvacations, was in Hawaii with my wife where we took 2 full weeks to island-hop with plenty of time to de-stress, enjoy each other and the peacefulness that only tropical islands can bring.  So, this was my lesson to learn to give time and focus to my well-being and longevity.

Don't we look relaxed here?

So, hopefully others can learn from my experience and revelations that vacations are necessary and important to your health.  Even if that means gulping gallons of wine as part of it (disclaimer: I am not a doctor and never played one on TV, though I did play quite a bit of Operation as a kid).  Seriously, time off is necessary no matter how busy you are or how much you think your business life will fail or come to halt in your absence.  Life will go on and you can get back to your emails later.

Oh, I haven’t told you where we are going?  We will be visiting Sonoma once again, with the following high-level (not written in stone) agenda starting March 4th.  This time, my wife and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary with 2 other couples who are our closest friends who also married in the year 2000.  I like round numbers.  We hope to show our friends the best time they ever had in the Sonoma Wine Country.  If you happen to be in the area around the times we are, feel free to tweet me up (@winetonite) and we’ll raise a glass, but note that we will be staying mostly away from the wineries participating in the barrel tasting this weekend, not that there’s anything wrong with tasting from a barrel… as a matter of fact, it is phenomenal.

Thursday, March 4th- Arrive SFO, Sonoma square for lunch, Bart Park winery, GunBun, and maybe Salinia Winery/The NPA before we land in Healdsburg at the always classy Casa Privata

Friday, March 5th – Dry Creek & Alexander Valley – Everett Ridge, C. Donatiello, Quivira, Jordan Vineyards, Lancaster Estate, Wilson Winery

Saturday, March 6th – South RRV – Merry Edwards, Halleck & Halleck, still working on a few options this day…

Sunday, March 7th – North RRV - Arista,  Thomas George, Gary Ferrell, Montemaggiore

Stay tuned this week for more posts on some tips on how to put together a wine country itinerary…