Happy New Year to you!
How about those resolutions for 2021? Have you stopped smoking? Did you start exercising? Going to bed early? My wine resolution for 2021 is to drink good wines!
And by this, I don't mean that I'll always be drinking the same top-of-the-range wines, or wines with only 100 points, or from the same regions or brands. After all “new year, new life”… so why not upgrade my home wine cellar?
Here are my three wine resolutions for 2021 to try to escape the obvious and “drink out of the box”. Will you join me?
I believe that I have established practical resolutions that any wine lover will be able to fulfill. Top of the list? Each month I will try a different grape variety. And because it is cold outside, I will start with a Portuguese red wine, Touriga Franca, a grape closely linked to the Douro region.
Next, I'm going to travel back in time and drink the wines that I didn't like in 2020. We can learn a lot about our personal tastes by returning to wines that we didn’t like the first time.
Professionally it allows me to get to know the profile of the producer and the evolution of their wine. Even Winemakers have bad days. Let's see if I change my mind and even like them ;)
Finally, I resolve that I want to taste throughout the year of 2021 all the wines and brands made by the same Winemaker!
This is the most daring of my wine resolutions, tasting from entry-level bottles (up to 2€ per bottle) to the top of the line wines, passing through the whites, rosés, reds, reserves and if they have, a natural sparkling wine and/ or a fortified wine too.
And if the chosen winemaker happens to make wines in several regions … well, then I guess I’ll make the sacrifice and drink those too! The hardest thing will be choosing the Winemaker!
However, I urgently need to reorganize my wine cellar. If you still don't have a cellar at home, then why not make that your New Years wine resolution?
From a simple wine fridge cabinet, easy and fast, just plug it in and go, to converting a room into a wine cellar at home. Of course the latter is more time consuming, but also much more rewarding. So roll up your sleeves, pour yourself a glass and get to work!
Now for that same wine cellar of mine, I’ve made a particular resolution. I am going to buy a case of wine that is near and dear to me and then let it age until I turn 60.
One of the best qualities to have when building a wine cellar is patience. Because when we’re surrounded by good wines at home and we couldn’t, but shouldn’t drink it, believe me, sometimes, it's not that easy to resist.
In a wine cellar there must be a balance between the wines to drink now, and the wines to store for aging. So my fourth resolution is to start filling my wine cellar with white and rosé wines for next summer.
When I read this text again a year from now I hope I’ve fulfilled a reasonable amount of my resolutions. Because what is the new year for if not to aspire to do more, be better and to go further, to learn something new, fall in love and to be happy. And a great bottle of wine can make all the difference.
If one of your resolutions for 2021 is to take a wine course and you don't live in Portugal then I already have a solution for you, the Discovering Portuguese Wines online wine class.
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