Resolutions

 Community Engagement

One of our goals at Studio Vino is creating a vibrant, wine-appreciating community in Salem, Oregon. With that in mind, I thought I would share a few of my wine-related new year resolutions with everyone. My goals are personal, but perhaps you get some new ideas as well!

1. Taste more

This one seems obvious to most folks on a wine learning journey, but I want to be more intentional about tasting. See an interesting grape? Try it! Don't just drink it...study it, learn about its history and place in Oregon, taste and take notes. Case in point: Johan Vineyards has a Ribolla Gialla that they bottle unfiltered. I am not familiar with that grape at all, as it's an ancient grape from Italy that is rare to find here in Oregon.

An intentional wine tasting might include doing some research on Ribolla Gialla and reading up on what might be typical for that wine's aromas and flavors. I would chill the wine, invite some other curious friends, get my notes ready, and uncork it. We would smell, sip, and discuss to see if what we learned about the grape is showing up in the glass.

A wine you would not normally choose can become a catalyst for learning, so take that chance and taste more (intentionally)!

True or False: Ribolla Gialla is a red grape variety. *

2. Hone a (Specific) Skill

Wine tasting is not simply drinking wine: it's a series of skills that you can train yourself on. Can't identify oak when you're tasting? You can learn about how oak shows up in finished wine and train yourself to find it. Identifying aromas in wine is a trainable skill; parsing flavors in wine is something you can improve; it just takes practice.

Rather than improving my wine tasting skills generally, my goal is to choose one skill and really focus on it. Wine tasting grids for programs like WSET and CSW ask you to look at the wine, smell the wine, taste the wine, and identify aromas, flavors, alcohol (heat), finish, age, and quality. So practice is essential, but like tasting, should be intentional.

I, personally, want to learn how to work on identifying the alcohol level in wine. It's not something that is easy for me to taste or sense, so I need to figure out how to discern different ABV levels more accurately. I'll figure out how by talking to others, reading about it, and, of course, tasting wine, but one thing at a time.

Resolve to choose a specific thing to work on with your wine tasting and take a deep dive.  

3. Grow Community 

Wine tasting is something that can be done solo, with an agreeable friend, or with a group of other wine aficionados. This year, I would like to foster growth in my personal wine community. I taste alone a lot...where are my people? I'm growing by talking to others, getting out to wineries, and blogging into the internet void, and if I can lure enough people to Studio Vino, I think I have a shot at this wine resolution.

Join me for some of our events this year at Studio Vino (Tuesday Tasting Group or Willamette Wines, for example) or just drop in! Help me with resolution number three...I can't wait to meet you (and I have wine).

*Quiz answer: Ribolla Gialla is a white grape from northern Italy (Fruili)