Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Waving Goodbye to 2008

Since we're waving goodbye to 2008, and I'm a historically minded wine blogger, I decided to dip into CellarTracker! and see what it told me about my year in wine. (photo /wave by striatic)

I tasted more than 400 wines this year, and was pleased to discover that my average cost for a bottle was $15.17--up only .86 since last year. The most valuable wine I drank was a 2003 Vincent Girardin Echezeaux. Mercifully, it was a gift. Even better, it was AMAZING. In the same seven day period that I sipped my Echezeaux, I also had my least expensive bottle of wine: the NV Zonin Primo Amore Juliet. At under $5, it was a pleasant, bubbly treat. That juxtaposition of a fabulous Burgundy and a fun, frothy wine somehow captures exactly what GWU$20 is all about.

I bought wine all over the place this year, but I was happy to see that my favorite wine retailer (no surprise here, really) was my local online wine retailer, domaine547. This was followed by my favorite local wine store, Pasadena's Chronicle Wine Cellar. Rounding out my top three--and a departure from previous spending habits--was direct purchases from wineries. In retrospect, I feel good about my decisions to support local businesses and wineries. In a touch-and-go economy, it's all the more important.

Finally, I looked at what it was that I drank in 2008. I was astonished to see that I tasted more Chardonnay than any other wine. CHARDONNAY? I'm not even aware that I'm all that excited about Chardonnay, but I guess the proof is in the numbers. I'm drinking it without even realizing it! Pinot Noir came in #2, followed by Sauvignon Blanc (I really would have thought that was #1), White Blends, and finally (my weakness) Red Rhone Blends.

Have you taken time to review your 2008 wine habits? Tune in tomorrow for my 2009 wine resolutions.

4 comments:

Enotheque said...

I'm surprised by how much French wine, from really diverse regions I've been tasting in the past four months or so. It's uncharacteristic of me to do something like that for too long. I suppose a recent move to the UK might explaining, with the choice one has for smaller farmed wines at a lower price. Wish their was a more exciting explanation for it than that though. Happpy new year!

Joe Roberts said...

We need some graphs and bell curves!

:-)

Anonymous said...

Wow, I'm truly honored to be mentioned here! Thanks, Dr. Debs. Hope we can continue to serve the community in 2009!

Anonymous said...

Isn't CellarTracker fabulous? I love being able to create reports on what I'm drinking and get other opinions on what to drink. My New Year's Resolution for 2009 is to drink more Australian Riesling.