The Grand Plan 2022
The one-year mark, what's next, dreams into diamonds
No writer really likes to write. I like to make love and drink wine. At my age I shouldn't lose time with anything else, but I can't stop writing. It's a disease. — Rubem Fonseca
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. — Anthony G. Oettinger
One-Year Anniversary
One week shy of one year ago today I posted the inaugural edition of this, my Tiny Vineyards newsletter. Now, 30 newsletters later (see archive), I’m about to embark on year two. I can’t tell you how amazing this feels, as it would probably just come out in some form of sappy-sentimental, cliché-clad, alliteration-laced verbal vomit (see, I can’t help myself!), which I already impose upon you far too often.
What I can say, though, without a doubt, is that this whacky journal of a journey would never have happened without your generous support as a subscriber. And for that I wish to sincerely thank you—and in the same breath brazenly implore you to do it again when your notice of renewal shows up in your inbox. For many of you brave and magnanimous souls, you early adopters, you literary risk-takers, that’s going to happen yet sometime this month. But no matter when you first started reading Tiny Vineyards, I hope you will stay the course.
It’s going to be an eye-opener of a second year as we go from the history and how-to of winemaking into the world of sensory analysis, varietal appreciation, branding, licensing, marketing, the formation of the Tiny Vineyards Wine company, the dissolution of the Tiny Vineyards Wine Company and bankruptcy (ha, just kidding!)—with a little bit of hands-on viticulture and oenophilic trivia thrown in.
Eclectic and enlightening as ever!
And do not fear—you are continuing to accrue wine credit for every dollar you spend on your subscription and renewal, which means you’ll get it all back in super-premium wine sometime in autumn 2023. That wine is safely through its initial crafting, is already tasting pretty damn yummy, and has begun over a year of aging in beautiful French oak barrels.
So, what’s next?
The first twelve months of the Tiny Vineyards newsletter focused on my (still) improbable evolution as an amateur home winemaker and gradual coming-of-age as a professional boutique winemaker. Now, we’re going to get serious about all of this, because I’ve got 200 cases of wine to sell in the not to distant future!