New Year's Wine Resolutions 2008

Last year, I made a set of wine resolutions and I did pretty well. My Spanish wine adventures led me to enjoy wines made from grapes and in regions I never knew before. I drank lots and lots of sparkling wine and never got tired of it, I assure you. I beat back some of my Burgundy anxiety, although I'm more sure than ever that Burgundy is never going to be a big thing in my wine life--unless I win the lottery. I kept my wine costs down, spending on average just $14.31 per bottle of wine this year. (vintage New Year's card from ca. 1925)

What's in store for 2008? In addition to continuing to do what I'm already doing to find and evaluate great value everyday wines, I have a new set of wine resolutions that will shape the posts on this blog, and increase my wine knowledge over the coming year. Without further ado, here are my wine resolutions for 2008:

1. Read More Wine Books: There are a lot of great wine books out there, and to my embarrassment I've read relatively few of them. I own them; I just don't read them. I talked to some fellow wine bloggers and discovered they, too, had stacks of books that they wanted to read. So with a group of over a dozen bloggers we're starting a new online blogging event: a bi-monthly Wine Book Club. I'll announce the details and the first host on January 3, and your host will tell you what book is up first for discussion. This will work along similar lines to Wine Blogging Wednesdays, except that we're giving you 2 months to read the book and reviews and discussion will take place the last Tuesday of every other month (i.e. February, April, June, August, October, and December 2008). We hope that you will participate by joining us in reading some classic, new, and award-winning books. Unlike wine, you can get wine books everywhere--even your local library.

2. Get to know the wines of Italy. I love Italy. I even read and speak Italian (but don't make me write it). So why are Italian wines such infrequent guests on my dinner table? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm going to apply myself to getting to know Italian wines this year. With 21 separate regions and scores of indigenous grapes, it's going to be a fun resolution to keep and it may even take me two years to get from one end of Italy to the other. At my virtual side will be Terry Hughes, who writes the wonderful blog Mondosapore, and a stack of Italian wine books (some of which I may even read, see #1). I predict that by the end of the year Terry will dread finding my queries in his comments, but he was the inspiration for this year's geographic resolution, so hopefully he won't mind too much.

3. Finish out my Wine Century. The Wine Century Club is an organization of wine-lovers each of whom has tasted 100+ different grape varieties. Currently, I've tasted 85. The first 50 were easy, the next 35 fun but challenging, and the last 15--they required special purchases. So I've left no stone unturned, no shop unvisited, and have even managed to stay within my $20 ceiling and purchased varieties such as Romorantin, Teroldego and Nerella Mascalese . Happily, many of these varietals are Italian (see #2). Starting next week we'll be counting down the last 15 varietals to grape #100, so that I can put in my paperwork this spring. I highly encourage you to visit the site, get a form, and see where you are in your own Wine Century. It's fun, it' s a great way to learn more about wine, and you cross-train your palate with less familiar varietals and styles of wine making.

4. Dabble in Champagne without blowing my budget sky-high. Champagne, like Burgundy, does not play a large role in my wine life. To be honest, I find it daunting, and the price of the wines does not encourage amateur experimentation. Still, I should know more about champagne than I do, if for no other reason than it would be nice to get something more creative than Veuve Clicquot when I'm looking for a sparkling wine gift or treat for myself. I'm setting myself a limit of $50 for champagne, because it's SO expensive I cannot believe it. But, with some careful sleuthing and help from my friends in terms of recommendations, I want to get over my conviction that these wines are totally out of my price league and not worth the money. Stay tuned for the results, and if you have suggestions for particular makers please let me know.

5. Drink more dessert wines. As a rule, we don't eat dessert. But sometimes around 9 pm I want something sweet, not caffeinated, and comforting. This is the perfect opportunity to pour myself a small glass of dessert wine, and I sometimes do just that. I would like to know more about them, however, and try more sherries and ports. Catavino has been posting some great reviews of wines that sound perfect for winter nights, and I'm confident there's more out there to discover.

That should keep me busy for most of the year! What are your wine resolutions for 2008?