What’s a New Year’s resolution unless you break it?
After muchos años of earnest attempts at new beginnings, I learned the hard way that the more resolutions you make, the more miserable you’ll feel come Jan. 31. So I did a little paradigm-shifting and decided that a maximum of three ‘goals,’ not ‘resolutions,’ was my thing.
And what better way to meet my 2019 weight loss goal than to take a stab at Dry January? (Dry January is a wellness campaign that started five years ago in the UK and made its way across the pond. It involves giving up alcohol for the entire month.)
At this point you may be wondering, what kind of self-respecting wine writer takes on Dry January? Answer: a desperate one. As in, desperate to fit into my pants. Desperate to see my pre-graduate-school self in the mirror. Desperate enough to think, “31 days? I got this.”
Well, I did and I didn’t, gracias to a glass of 2015 Sokol Blosser Estate Pinot Noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. By the way, one of the best tips I got during my Oregon-related wine studies is that ‘Willamette’ rhymes with ‘dammit.’ You’re welcome!
So how did I break a near-three week streak of nada de vino? In six words, a call from a general contractor. I learned that the leak we discovered in our master bedroom was going to cost thousands more to fix than we thought.
And thus, I drank. 
But it wasn’t any old glass of vino. It was the augmented-reality version of drinking wine. It was a sultry chorus line of smoke and pepper and Rainier cherries sashaying across the palate. It was delicate minerals mambo-ing with diaphanous tannins. It was coltish, lean legs lining the sides of my glass in a graceful, medium-bodied pirouette. It was the happiest my mouth had been in 21 days. And everyone is wearing ruby-colored sequins! Dammit, I wanna DANCE!
Chicas y chicos, let me say that I made that glass of wine last a full hour-and-a-half. Which for me is a record.
Tomorrow marks my last day of Dry January, and I’m proud to say that I only caved once. Would I do it all over again? Probably not. But I am four pounds lighter than I was on New Year’s Day. And yes, my pants fit.
What would it take to get you to give up wine for a month? Share your comments below.
