New Years Resolutions

I’m not much for making resolutions, but thought I would take a moment to record my goals for Winecast in 2006:

• Taste more wine – I tasted more different wines in 2005 than probably any previous year, but want to become a better taster and this will require more practice.
• Attend 8-10 tastings – I did 3 or 4 formal tastings in 2005; I need to more than double this number to improve my palette and hope at least one of them requires a road trip.
• Take a wine tasting course – I’m a self-taught wine geek and don’t know what I don’t know. I think a structured class might also develop my skills further.
• Record more podcasts – I mentioned this on Winecast 49 as I reflected on my first year; if I succeed in my first three goals, this will provide enough material more frequent shows.
• Read 6-8 wine books – I read 4 wine books in 2005 and have only really talked about 2 of them on the show. I’m just finishing up the excellent, “The Emperor of Wine“, by Elin McCoy now and will feature it shortly. This reminded me how important reading about wine has been for my wine education and I will make more time to read more books this year.
• Record more on location interviews with winemakers – I did one onsite and a couple others on the phone. I want to bring more of these stories to the Winecast audience.
• Taste new varietals – As I look back over my first 49 shows, I see only one that featured wines made from grapes I had never heard of or had tried before. This will change this year, starting with Tannat later this month.
• Finally finish my store and WineWiki – These have been in the works for many months now and will be completed shortly; really 🙂
• Get sponsorship – This is another long-term project that should be finished in January.
• Blog more – I started to blog on Winecast this spring and slowed down as the year ended. I’m going to make an effort to spend at least an hour each night blogging wine news and contributing to other discussions in the wine blogosphere.

Well that’s it; ten resolutions for the coming year. I’ll be revisiting this list toward the end of each month to track my progress. Thanks again for a great 2005 and Happy New Year!