- Taste more wine
- Share more wine
- Learn more about wine
- Buy more wine
- Sell more wine
- Gift more wine
- Enjoy more wine
- Discover more wine
- Diversify my taste in wine
Welcome to my short list of goals for 2009.
With enough time off to unplug and enjoy friends, family as well as rest and recharge, I continue to come back to the precious value in meaningful connections. Those connections happen every day in person but also they happen online. This blog’s connection to you is high on my list of meaningful connections. Twitter and 12Seconds also grant me invaluable connections to friends, information and more people expanding my horizons.
Wine is a kind of glue or lubricant or artistic moment shared between people that toasts the height of connection and sharing. Ok, yes, perhaps I’m overly sentimental; it is the holidays and the meaning in my days and in my relationships is something I value above anything else. Sentimentality is bound to creep in.
So in 2009 I am committed to hosting more Bloggers Tasting Forums (watch for them among many wineries and also from Hahn, coming in March) as well as another kind of Tasting Forum: A Comparative Tasting among F&B types. The original idea comes from Shannon Marshall (@perthgirl) in New York City. It is meant to be something like the Bloggers Tasting Forum but co-hosted by the winery and the restaurant, bar or other venue with groups of wine buyers, wine directors, sommeliers, Food & Beverage Directors, etc. for the purpose of connecting, tasting, learning… It is in development, so I’ll fill in more details soon. Thea Dwelle (@WineBratSF) has continued to do a lovely job talking about blogging and the wine industry as well as Mutineer Magazine, spreading the word and appreciation for the Bloggers Tasting Forum. It is an idea catching on my many places in various incarnations.
Its impact is about word of mouth: “Wine Bloggers are the new way of providing word of mouth marketing.” said Ms. Dwelle. And many of us have read Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: “…it is safe to say that word of mouth is – even in this age of mass communication and multimillion dollar advertising campaigns – still the most important form of human communication.”
I invite you to join me in at least one of the goals listed above. I look forward to raising a glass and connecting with you as well.
Happy New Year…and cheers!
California Wine Life 