California wine country

In less than a month, husband and I will be flying to SFO and making the hour trip north to California wine country to celebrate his 30th birthday.  We have a huge number of American Airlines miles, so our flights cost only $10 each.  Seriously, $10.  That's like free.  We couldn't NOT go.

Have you been to wine country before?

 We love it.  Love. It.  This will be our 5th trip to Sonoma/Napa.

There's something about driving north out of San Francisco, and as you crest over the hill out of Marin Country...the everyday life stresses just drift away.

We have plans to do Sonoma, Anderson Valley, Bodega Bay, and Napa.  We are taking a cooking class at the Culinary Institue of America (CIA).  We are having brunch at Ad Hoc with great family friends who live in Sausalito.  We will have dinner at Redd, Petit Sirah, and Rosso Pizzeria.

We are visiting lots of new wineries that we haven't been to before...

As well as revisiting some of our very favorite places.

We have our habits down - buy wine shippers early, stop at Costco and the Bottle Barn to stock up on wines we can't buy on the east coast, and take shipping tape with us.  Go to the store for bottles of water and some snacks for the week when we first get to town.  Share tastings so we can taste more wines and go to more places in a day.  Drink beer (or water?) at night so we aren't completely sick of wine by the end of the trip.

Have you been to California wine country?  What are some of your favorite places?