Welcome to 2005! We hope that all of you had a very happy holiday season in spite of the disasters (both natural and planned) taking place in the world over the last few weeks and months.

Thank you for your business and support throughout 2004. We are looking forward to the upcoming year and being able to offer you the most interesting and delicious wines available in our market. We will continue to sell wines that we believe offer good value and authentic winemaking practices that convey a sense of place. We will avoid wine press hype and phony scoring systems. We will continue to only offer wine that we drink ourselves - because we think it tastes good - not because we think we can sell caseloads.

The big news for Guy du Vin is that we will soon be moving our current Global World Headquarters in Sellwood to a new Global Galactic Headquarters in Johns Landing. We expect to be in our new location sometime in February. Once we move in, you will have the option of delivery or being able to pick up your order and save the delivery charge. Plus, we plan on having plenty of wines available for you to taste when you stop by. You can ask questions, meet us, meet Molly (the dog), taste wine and enjoy the great view. We will be offering weekly tastings, wine classes and a tasting group. Other services we might add include credit counseling, family planning, tax consulting, espresso, tire rotation, Pilates, shoeshine, lap dancing and palm reading. (Lap dancing seems to have the support of 50% of Guy du Vin employees.) Tell us what you think!

Since it is a New Year, we thought it would be a good idea to make a few New Year Resolutions:

• I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
• I will remind others that in some cultures what I do would be considered normal.
• I will refrain from calling overweight people "over-extracted" and "flabby".
• I will strive to remember that a scapegoat is almost as good as a solution.
• I will refrain from calling our political leaders disingenuous, insincere, deceitful, lying, thieves and crooks that don't buy enough wine from Guy du Vin and remember to call our political leaders incompetent, disingenuous, insincere, deceitful, lying, thieves and crooks that don't buy enough wine from Guy du Vin.

And finally a resolution from Molly, our faithful terrier:

• January 1st: Kill the sock! Must kill the sock!
• January 2nd - December 31: Re-live victory over the sock.