I don’t know about everyone else but I’m ready to put up the Christmas decorations and call it a year!  Generally speaking, this has not been a great year for anyone.  A global pandemic, murder hornets, mass layoffs, recession, all our favorite restaurants closing, no travel when everyone really could use a vacation, no get togethers or hanging out with friends.  Even the hurricanes have pet hurricanes this year. Then to cap it off massive wildfires that have affected CA, WA, and OR with a smoke plume which has now made its way all the way to Europe!  Yep, no way around it, this has been a tough year.  So I thought I would share some of the good news in my world in the hopes that if we all focus on the small, good things that have happened this year, maybe we’ll all feel a little bit better.

First of all, smiling babies make everything better!

My youngest son was born in May at home and the past few months have been both a blessing and a challenge as they always are with a new baby.  He was born at home, which I was nervous about at first but I had an amazing midwife to help me through it.  Even up until I went into labor, I had always thought that I would end up in the hospital for the birth however when he decided to come on, he came quickly and I was eternally grateful I had set up for a home birth “just in case” the COVID situation at the hospital made me too uncomfortable to go. He is the single best thing to have happened to our family this year and everyday when I get to see his smiling face, it feels like everything is right with the world even though its falling apart in many ways.  Forever more, going forward, when we talk about this year, I want to be very careful to make sure he knows how good he made this year for us when it was so challenging.

The other good things showed up this week!  First, we found out that our 2016 Trestle Thirty One Riesling won a gold medal and was the second highest scoring Riesling at the Sommeliers Choice Awards 2020.  This was our first competition that we entered and I couldn’t be happier with the result! After working so hard for so long, it is always good to get validation that you are going in the right direction.

Speaking of going in the right direction, I also found out this week that I have made the list of the top 101 Wine Writers of 2020 from Corking Wines in the UK.  This was utterly shocking because I so rarely think of myself as a wine writer but rather a winemaker who writes.  Still, the list is an amazing compilation of who’s who that I cannot help but be incredibly humbled to have even been considered much less actually granted a spot.