Moving and Purging

While in Italy for harvest of 2008, I’d closed on a new home one-third the size of my current one. For months I’ve been working on “lightening” – I’ve been feeling hemmed in by responsibilities and possessed by my possessions. The process started a year ago with closing the wine shop (though to connect this to a process of lightening would be incorrect – it was due to an already-declining market for the kinds of wine I was selling). By mid-spring further weakness in the economy was translating into declining wine cellar commissions and I was looking for ways to sell the construction side of VintageSpec, which Chris (my project manager for the last 3 years) purchased from me at the end of August. (He renamed this part of the company C2G construction and has expanded into home remodeling and general handyman work, as well as continuing to build cellars, which I still design. I cannot recommend his company highly enough. He does a great job.) Basically, my corporate activity with VintageSpec is now limited to what can be done with a laptop and an internet connection anywhere in the world.