Regardless of your standpoint on setting New Year’s Resolutions, that annual tradition where hoards of people flood the gym for three weeks in January or a sizable percentage of smokers flush their cigarettes before buying a new pack the following week, I’m sure you’d agree that setting personal goals yields results.

With that in mind, I’m going to set my sights on wine I’d love to drink and tastings that I would love to make happen this year. Some easily attainable (perhaps later today?), and some nearly impossible due to the rarity or cost of the wine. My mentality is that writing it down and thinking about it surely wont make it any less realistic.

Riesling Battle Royale: British Columbia versus Ontario
Over the past year, I’ve been collecting many of the best Rieslings I’ve come across from both sides of Canada with the intention of pitting them against each other in an epic blind tasting. So far, I’ve collected various vintages and labels of both Tantalus and Cave Spring with a few other producers mixed in there. This will happen this year and I may need your help drinking the aftermath.



Drink More Wine By Jacques Puffeney
A producer that excited me more than nearly anyone else last year was Jacques Puffeney from the Jura region of France. Using a natural approach, he makes light, yet powerful and complex reds from Trousseau, Poulsard, and Pinot Noir as well as minerally and intense whites from Savagnin and Chardonnay. My first sub-goal is to convince someone in Canada to import his wines so I can drink them even more frequently. My second sub-goal is to drink as much wine from the Jura as I am able to.



Drink More Loire
Muscadet, Anjou, Saumur, Savennières, Bourgueil, Chinon, Vouvray. So much interesting wine and at affordable prices. Bring it.

Keep Gambling With The Unknown
As many hardcore wine fans do, I rarely buy the same bottle of wine twice and if I haven’t heard of it, I’ll usually try it. Yesterday we drank the Sottimano ’08 Maté, a dry Brachetto from Piedmonte and it was absolutely delicious. Things like that don’t happen when you take the easy road with Argentinian Malbec. As a sub-goal, I’ll keep exploring the obscure Italian varietals and appellations whenever possible.


Image credit Michael J. Walsh, copyright 2006

Experience More Wine From Sean Thackrey
Specifically, I’d like to taste the eccentric Californian winemaker’s Orion blend and mostly because of the reaction after Oz and James taste it at the 24:35 mark of this video. Brilliant.

Drink Wine From Giuseppe Quintarelli
I still haven’t ponied up the money for any wine from the aging “Master of the Veneto,” but I mull over the idea of buying some every time I step into Biondivino and see those sexy bottles sitting on a pedestal. It may be a while still before I crack the big-ticket labels like Alzero (100% Cabernet Franc) or his Amarone, but I aim to start with his Valpolicella at some point this year.

Drink Wine Made By Denis Mortet Before It’s Too Late
Denis Mortet took over his father’s 1 hectare domaine in Burgundy in the 80′s and continued to gather property until he controlled 10 hectares spanning 14 appellations. His reputation was built on his minute attention to detail and his perfectionism. Denis’ Gevrys and Clos Vougeots were widely praised and some of the biggest and most hedonistic examples available. His final completely worked vintage was 2005 before he shot himself in 2006.

Drink Wine From Château Valandraud
The majority of Bordeaux has never really excited me. Maybe I haven’t tasted enough great Bordeaux (or enough great Bordeaux at the proper age) or perhaps stylistically, it doesn’t fall into the spectrum I’ve been enjoying most lately. To quote Andrew Jefford, “The Bordeaux the world talks about is a tiny band of celebrity wines within the region, made by the wealthy for the tables of the rich.” That’s also why. One producer whose story I love is Jean-Luc Thunevin. He was the ultimate Bordeaux ‘garagiste’ who literally began making wine in a garage in the back streets of St Emilion using grapes from his 0.6 ha plot of vines in 1989. Having nothing to lose, he put all his energy and time into making quality wine using a recipe of small yields, organic viticulture, completely ripe grapes and some new world influenced cellar techniques. It was his 1995 vintage which catapulted him when Robert Parker scored his wine on par with many of the top producers from Bordeaux’s Right Bank. This isn’t your grandfather’s claret, but rather a more concentrated and extracted style. I’d love to give it a try. Predictably, following the scores and the attention, Château Valandraud’s prices have become exorbitant.

I could keep going on and on, but that should keep me busy for the next 12 months.