We would like to thank all of our readers and customers for their support of Guy du Vin over the past 45 years on the internet. We are making two New Year's Resolutions this year. One is NOT to make any New Year's Resolutions. The other is NOT to rehash the year we've just escaped with a top ten list of wines. These lists are a mystery to me, much like why every female in California above the age of fourteen has had a nose job yet the Sphinx - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - still looks like an inbred Pekinese after a car wreck. The truth is that the only people who read those lists are the ones who wrote them, the companies that sell the wine and a few lost souls seeking the meaning of life in three easy steps. These lists are just the wine press spewing out its own contents. Sort of like a cookbook for anorexics - pointless.

Anyway, this seems like an opportune time to remind you of the purpose of this newsletter and the Guy du Vin website. (We have a lot of new subscribers who may not be aware of our mission.) We sure do enjoy wine and we love putting this newsletter together every couple of weeks. We like it even better when you buy wine! (We have discovered over the preceding year that the money part makes the wine taste better and we feel compelled to remind you of your implied responsibility as readers of the Guy du Vin Newsletter to make regular purchases of wine from us.)

But in addition to trying to get you to give us your money, we hope you will continue to read this newsletter and share it with your friends. The focus will continue to be on great tasting, value-based wines from producers that make wines that are distinctive, harmonious and delicious. We will continue to support smaller artisan producers whose wines emphasize a sense of place. And we will strive to give you solid, un-hyped information on great tasting wines from around the world that reflect winemaking at its best.

Our emphasis will always be on value, however, we will occasionally remind you that if you are interested in wine and want to understand what turns people like us into eno-fanatics, you need to experience something other than a steady stream of $8 Merlots. To develop an appreciation of wine, you need to taste top of the line stuff - not every day, not even once a month, but often enough that you develop a sense of just how good wine can get and what distinguishes the noteworthy stuff from the plonk.

The great wines of the world are individuals. They are not common. And they are worth everything - everything - and those are the wines that make us care about this crazy way we make a living here at Guy du Vin.