Good Grape Wine Company

December 26 2006

Good Grape New Year’s Resolutions

I love New Year’s--I love turning a new leaf, planning, goals and the whole notion of a fresh start.  One of my goals last year was to start a wine-related blog and my 2006 unfolded in positive and enjoyable ways that I never could have predicted based on that simple notion.  Henceforth, a new set of goals centered around this site for 2007. 

1) Re-Read Karen MacNeil’s Wine Bible from cover to cover

2) Re-Read the Oxford Companion to Wine from cover to cover

3) Re-Read the New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia from cover to cover

4) Try not to take said gained knowledge and affront other people’s sensibilities

5) Never to use the word “fruit bomb” in any of my ’07 writing

6) Never refer to superstar Chef Mario Batali as “Falstaffian,” as every other writer who wrote a piece on him in ’06 has done.

7) Use the word “hoary” more often. 

8) To work on my grammatical Achilles heels’ – the use of the possessive, the proper use of tense within the same paragraph, passive voice, and too much adverb usage (according to the English Lit. major who doubles as my wife).  And, to occasionally write a 200 word post to mix it up with the 500 – 900 word posts that make up most of this site

9) Form an educated opinion on Biodynamics

10) Figure out the clubby world of wine certifications and which ones are important to which people

11) To not buy any more wine books until I read the 14 already purchased and queued up quite literally on my nightstand.

12) To utilize downtime in the early mornings, late at night and in many airports to expand my consumption of wine podcasts

13) To join and become active in one or more of the wine message boards—wineloverspage.com, eBob, westcoastwine.net

14) To make Good Grape a better and more engaging place for dialogue about wine
that is well-respected amongst my peers as well as consistently amusing and provocative

15) To break out of my Zin/Pinot/Syrah triumvirate and drink more Old World vino—particularly Italian and French, including Nebbiolo from the Barbaresco region and Chateaneuf-du-Pape, both of which hold me in quiet study.

16) To increase my drinking quality while reducing my wine spending … and to use the Internet to buy more wine (shipping costs don’t count)

17) To go back to my Wine 2.0 and Cluetrain Manifesto that I started earlier in ’06 and neglected for the 2nd half of ‘06

18) To cross-collaborate more often in the wine blogosphere

19) To become involved in my own community and Indianapolis wine activity

20) To continue to work on my palate, but to do so in a way that doesn’t sound as pretentious as “working on my palate.”

21) To have even more fun than the life altering enjoyment I got out of wine blogging in ‘06

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