Year-end 2009 marked the first full year of this site, which was started way back in June 2008. At the risk of sounding too self-important and cliché, I wanted to post a quick 2009 year-end wrap up for posterity.
I started this site as a way to bring order to my wine notes and chronicle some of my travels that involve wine. Since this site is still an informal, random collection of my wine experiences, I’m not sure if I’ve met my initial charge – but I’ve totally enjoyed the learning experience of formalizing some of my wine thoughts on this blog, and I’ve met some great people to boot.
In 2009, a couple of my quasi-accomplishments:
- I wrote 115 posts
- Enjoyed wine on 5 continents
- Flew 152,000 miles.
- Spent 149 nights in Marriotts (and a few more at other hotel chains)
- Took a long awaited trip to Oregon’s Willamette Valley
- Attended the Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, CA
- Took a wine tasting weekend in Virginia wine country with friends and follow wine bloggers, Dezel Quillen of MyVineSpot, and John Witherspoon of AnythingWine.
- Met a lot of great wine friends through this site
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to meet my primary 2009 wine related goal:
Redesign and move this site to WordPress and turn DrinkWhatYouLike in to an actual blog that resembles a real website vice something that a bored wino fobbed together.
Aside from attending the European Wine Bloggers Conference, my number one 2010 wine related goal is to finally professionalize this site (guess that would include devoting more than an hour a week to this site). I realize the formatting, layout, and consistent grammatical and spelling errors detract from the actual content and cheapen the site (of course I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing to keep expectations low…. 🙂 ). I will work on improving this site as I take my wine education to the next level in 2010.
Although I’m not able to devote enough time to this blog to capture all of my tasting notes and wine experiences, I have a couple of notable favorites this year that I’d like to recap:
Favorite Wine Trip of 2009: My favorite wine related trip of 2009 was to Australia where I met some incredible wine makers, toured beautiful vineyards and countryside, and was turned on to Australian Pinot Noir. The only downside to this trip was the fact that my wife wasn’t able to join me. I’ll be returning Down Unda in May/June, and hope to take wifey along with me.
A close second was my trip to the Willamette Valley – FINALLY! Having my wife with me made this trip perfect. I plan to return to the Willamette Valley in 2010 for a week or two. I am planning my trip during the Fall, and hopefully can convince a winery to let me work (volunteer) with them for a week during harvest.
By rough estimate, I tasted 500+ wines in 2009. This includes winery visits, wine festivals, trade tastings and wine consumed during meals. Of all the wines I tasted, a few stood out for me (there are of course too many other great ones to list here).
Favorite White of 2009:
By far, my favorite white wine of 2009 was the 2007 Matthiasson White. During a trip to Napa in January, my wife and I had the pleasure of having lunch at the home of Matthiasson founders, Jill Klein and Steve Matthiasson, where I was first introduced to their amazing wines (read post here). Given the amount of very well deserved national recognition and big time press Matthiasson wines are receiving, I suspect these wines may be much harder to find in 2010.
Favorite Red(s) of 2009:
One of my favorite reds of the year was the Patricia Green 2005 Anniversary Pinot Noir. We opened this bottle in February as part of ‘Open the Bottle Night.’
One indicator that I will never be a professional wine critic is my situational bias – the fact that my enjoyment level of any given wine goes up exponentially if I happen to be consuming that wine during a Steelers victory, or, if my wife and I happen to be enjoying the wine together on a quiet night at home (I travel an insane amount so this is a rare occasion). One of my favorite wines while enjoying a Steelers victory (AFC Championship Game) back in January was the Le Telquel Gamay produced my ultra minimalist Theirry Puzelat. This wine tasted much better as the Steelers sealed their victory.
On wine blogging in 2009: I realize it’s passé to blog about wine blogging, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few of my favorite wine blogs that I read on an almost daily basis. I currently follow about 100 wine blogs with Google Reader, but these are just a few of my favorites:
- Good Grape written by Jeff Lefevere. In this time of short attention spans and Twitter-dominated communication, Jeff’s long-format Op-Ed style is refreshing. Thankfully the wine blogosphere has people with Jeff’s writing talent and passion for the subject of wine. If you don’t read Good Grape, you should. It is, by far, one of the very best wine related sites ‘out there.’
- Bigger Than Your Head written by Fredric Koeppel. Much like Good Grape, Bigger Than Your Head is exceptionally well written with a strong focus on wine reviews. Fredric is a professional wine writer by trade and that clearly shows at BTYH. He is on my list of wine people to meet. If I’m ever in Memphis I plan to look him up in the hopes of shaking him down for some cheese toast. Not only is BTYH well written with valuable/usable advice and tasting notes, it has a clean layout that I appreciate.
- Virginia Wine Time written by Warren Richard and Paul Armstrong. As the name suggests, their blog is solely focused on the growing Virginia wine industry. Virginia Wine Time, in my opinion, is the best single-state-focused wine blog in the blogosphere. The word ‘best’ defined as actually having useful information. I have been a long time reader of VWT and have utilized the site several times when making decisions on wineries to visit during trips out to Virginia wine country. Paul and Warren are also on my list of wines peeps to meet in 2010.
- HoseMaster of Wine written by some guy named Ron Washam. This guy is a hoot – he’s crass, rude, funny, opinionated, uses swear words in his posts, and posts the occasional nude female images – but I like it. I really enjoy good satire, and this is good (at times) satire. Ron too, is on my list of wine people to meet in 2010.
- Wino sapien written by Edward, a 40 something, father, husband, doctor based in Perth, Australia. I found Wino sapien early in 2009, and read it religiously. Edward’s site was a huge resource for me leading up to my trip to Australia. From his writing, Edward appears to be a cerebral dude, and I like smart people, and like reading their writing. Hat tip to Edward for turning me on to a couple of good books during the year as well.
I certainly left out a lot of other great wine blogs, but wanted to give a few shout outs.
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Hi Frank, I just found your blog and am enjoying getting to know your palate and some of your experiences. Thanks for bringing up to quick speed with your recap. I hope you meet all your goals for 2010!!
Thanks for stopping by to comment! I too hope that I meet these 2010 goals… the good news is that I have 12 months ahead of me … 😉
All the best in 2010!
Frank,
Happy new year and thanks for the kinds words. One of the most rewarding things I’ve found with my blog is all the people with common interests scattered across the globe, united by RSS feeds and blog lists.
Happy New Year!
Looking forward to sharing another bottle of wine soon!
Lemme know if I can help you with your wordpress move or anything else techie related! Always glad to help a friend! 🙂
Cheers!
What an honor to have made your favorite white wine of the year! Your visit was a fun afternoon. So was the blogger’s conference. Now I need to track down the Patricia Green Pinot Noir…
Happy New Year Steve! Thanks for stopping by. I hope to stop by for a visit during trip out in April. I believe I saw your wine on the list at BLT in DC a while back… I told the folks I was with that “Hey, I know this guy…”. I hope you and Jill have a great 2010.
Frank,
You’re too kind. Thank you. At the next WBC we’ll have to hang out a little bit more, too. Though, that grand Tasting was pretty sweet.
By the way, you told me, but I forget (banking?) — what causes you to travel 150K miles a year?
Jeff
Hi Jeff – we’ll definitely have to visit longer at the next WBC. It was a great event – very hectic, fast-paced with lots of great wine and people.
I work in the Aerospace industry… one of my professional goals for ’10 is to get my travel under 100k, and hotel nights under 100. We’ll see…
Thanks for stopping by to comment.
All the best in 2010!
Paul and Warren are good blogger buds. The Virginia Wine Dogs hope to meet you along the trail this year as well.
Munchkin
Hi VaWineDogs… I’ll be on the look out for the dogs out on the wine trail…
Hello Frank,
Can’t say I’ve ever seen your blog before, unlike most bloggers I don’t spend much time reading wine blogs–I have a queasy stomach–but thank you for mentioning HoseMaster of Wine as one of your favorite blogs. You know how thankless a task wine blogging is, so it’s nice to be recognized.
Something of a strange goal to want to meet me in 2010. Don’t let the notion that I can write give you the idea that I’m actually interesting in person. But next time you’re in Sonoma, I’m easy to track down.
Good luck with your goals for 2010. Happy New Year!
Ron
Hello Ron! Thank you for stopping by to comment. I visit Sonoma/Napa a couple of times a year and will definitely look you up my next trip.
But… just a quick point of clarification… you’re assuming that I assume that you are an interesting person just because you can write… your writing has little to do with wanting to meet. It’s your sommelier background – I was simply hoping to shake you down for some good wine while I’m out there… 😉
GREAT picks – especially loved that Matthiasson (made my #1 in my 2009 recap. as well). great blog picks also.
Cheers!
Thanks for stopping by Joe! The Matthiasson is definitely one of the best. I look forward to see what the future holds for their wine as they get more and more (much deserved) positive press. Steve and Jill are definitely two of the best folks in the wine biz. All the best.