That probably sounds more foreboding than it actually is but I’m okay with that. My writing professors always said that the title of a piece needed to draw the reader in so maybe this is about doomsday in Charlottesville , VA or maybe it’s not. I guess you’ll have to keep reading to find out.

Spoiler: It’s not about doomsday in Charlottesville.

There’s all sorts of recaps for WBC floating around. Some good, some bad, some funny. This one is more personal (put on your group hug shoes and let’s get ready to do this).

Big events like WBC tend to evoke big emotion from yours truly. Last year, I was so overwhelmed with the amazing experience that I had that I still have a draft of what I wrote directly after the conference ended that I’ve chosen not to publish.

This year, I’d say my emotion was just as big, but the emotion was different. I’d had a fantastic time, drank great wines, visited super awesome places (Monticello, anyone?) and best of all, hung out with some of the coolest people I know. I feel lucky enough to call a number of the attendees friends and to have even shared a hotel party or two with one of our keynotes, Eric Asimov (who’s pretty badass because he’s so down to Earth).

But back to the emotion. I was left feeling unsure about the future of this blog. Why? Let’s get into that.

My life in 2011 has focused less on wine and more on losing weight and building a solid foundation with my fiancé for our life ahead (no, we haven’t set a date for our wedding and I don’t want to make any of this post about that, honestly). I was thinking about how I don’t post as much as I used to and even worse, I don’t follow through with posts that I have ideas for. Sometimes, it just feels like I’ve lost the motivation to keep up with this old thing (I started this guy in January of 2009 so in the land of blogging, that actually is pretty old).

And then I thought about it some more. So what if my focus in life is changing? That just means that maybe the focus here should change, too. After all, if you go back to my very first few posts (please don’t), I wrote a few wine reviews, and that’s something that I find extremely boring and unhelpful now. I stopped writing them after something like the 4th one, which shows how quickly I adjusted my writing and content a couple years ago when I was unfulfilled.

I started my blog back then with the ultimate goal of gaining employment in the wine biz, and that happened less than 9 months after starting to chase my goal. What did I do then? I refocused this thing to be a more personal account of my own life within wine. That’s worked for nearly two years but maybe it’s time to readjust again.

I’m not sure exactly what this means for me (or for the blog), but it does mean that I’m not closing shop, even though I’d thought about it quite seriously. It might mean that while I get my act together, there won’t be many posts. In the end, I hope that there’s a positive result to be found and that I can continue trying my best to deliver the best stories that I can tell.

In the end (which really might only be the beginning if you think about it), I’m sticking around and everything is pretty much unicorns and rainbows. I love writing and I love writing about wine.

Look at how Millennial I am, posting a Lisa Frank image. My generation is so unique that no one could possibly think that they understand us. (I really did have this stationary set, fyi.)

At the end of March, I filled all of you in on my journey of losing weight. I said it then and I still kind of like to try to keep this thing limited to wine related stuff, but screw it. I want to share this update with you so I’m going to. Knowing more about the (wo)man behind the curtain never hurt, right?

Since January, my life has been so different than the months before that. Now, two glasses of wine on a Wednesday night is something rarely even attempted, let alone commonplace. Going out to eat is a bit more tedious because I actually care about the nutritional value of what I take in. Making my own food has taken a higher priority. When we do go out, I more often order a salad instead of a sauce-covered piece of meat between bread. It might not have been want I wanted before, it’s what I want now. I’ve actually found myself craving salads in a way that I’d only ever craved chocolate before. A deep, aching cry from deep within the fibers of my being just screams “I need vegetables!”

It’s good.

This doesn’t mean that I haven’t found a balance between my life of wine consumption and calorie limitation, though. I still enjoy some pretty good wines. I’m just doing it a little less often and when I do indulge, I’m having fewer glasses. I’m a little more selective and I’m not finding that to be a terribly bad thing. The lack of hangovers also isn’t a bad perk (of course with the exception of my Stanley Cup celebration). My mornings are better for it.

It’s not like I never splurge, either. In May, I traveled to Niagara, CAN for a wonderful iteration of TasteCamp North, and totally forgot for a few days what counting calories was like. Granted, all of the food was amazingly local and fresh, so I wasn’t all that concerned with terrible gross additives or anything like that, but it was refreshing. I came back and was surprised that I hadn’t even gained anything back from some of those over-indulgences.

After all this babbling you probably want a numbers update, huh? Sure, sure. I’ll cave. In my last update I’d lost 25 pounds. I’m quite happy to report that as of this morning, that number is up to 38 pounds lost, meaning that I’m a mere 12 pounds from reaching my major goal of losing 50 pounds.

At this point, I’m pretty sure that I’ll take my weight loss further than that 50 pounds, but it’s going to be an amazing goal to reach before the end of 2011 (that’s really my only goal for a time table here). Having made all of this progress, I have no doubts that I’ll get there and when I do, I’m going to look back on 2011 as one hell of a transformation year.

While I’ve been a little absent from this blog and from the wine scene, it’s not been a waste. Wine will always be a massive passion for me to enjoy and nerd out about. One day (hopefully soon) I’ll be able to fully dive back into this in the way that I once did. Until then, I’ll see you at the Wine Bloggers’ Conference next week!

What goes better with winning a title in sports than some bubbly? From the looks of it, the 2011 Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins seem to agree (yes, my boys won the STANLEY CUP!!!). Here’s a little proof:

The boys with some Veuve Clicquot and the Cup.

They also took that a step further a couple days later and ordered a Midas sized bottle of Ace of Spades. Yeah, that’s 40 normal sized bottles all in one. And they drank it straight from the bottle. I was going to judge them for it but I can’t. They get to have a little fun (They also got 20 bottles of Moet Imperial that night so someone in the organization knows a little about bubbles.)

If this bottle doesn't look massive to you, take into consideration that the Bruins captain, Zdeno Chara, is 6' 9" tall and drinking from the bottle.

To top all of that off, the (now retired) vertan of the team, Mark Recchi, spoke earlier this year to Robert Taylor of Wine Spectator about his off ice wine hobby. In that interview, Recchi said: “I have a 1970 Pétrus. [...] I’m saving that Pétrus for something special; I want to win another Stanley Cup.” Well, he’s done that. Does he plan on drinking some of that wine out of the Cup? Has he already savored the 41 year old bottle of Bordeaux? I wish I knew. I’d love to speak with the man about wine some day.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking. The Bruins have been drinking some pretty decent stuff since last Wednesday when they first hoisted the Cup and Boston has been winning kind of a lot in the last decade. How does the Bruins celebratory wine stack up to that of the other major sports?

Lucky for you, I have the answers!

Red Sox This is a big one. I expected a lot out of their bubbly, to be honest. An 86 year draught aught to entitle players to something awesome, right? Well, maybe; maybe not. In 2004, they popped Mount Pleasant Brut, a $23 bottle from… Missouri? Yeah, I’ve never heard of it. I don’t know what it tastes like and I’m not sure it’s worthy of breaking the curse, but them’s the facts.

Then, in 2007, they popped another domestic sparkler, one that you might be a little more familiar with: Domain Ste. Michelle Brut (about $10 retail). It’s pretty solid for the money (I had it a few years ago at this point so I’m pulling from memory here) but I’m not sure it speaks “World Series Wine” to me.

Celtics Believe it or not, their 2008 celebration contained very few bottles of bubbles. It took some serious searching to figure out what the bubbles were, but I got it. They drank some Moet Imperial (though the locker room was more filled with Bud Light cans than anything else).

Patriots Let’s be honest, I hate football. All these guys seem to do is pour really cold buckets of water/gatorade on their coach and then say they’re going to Disney World. I couldn’t find evidence of one popped cork in their locker room (it’s possible that the NFL keeps that footage on lock down and if that’s the case, my next statement holds true). Bummer.

Which team had the best bubbly situation post-championship win? I know I’m biased, but I have to say that the Bruins did with the abundance of solid champagne that they’ve been drinking. The Celtics come solidly in second place here. Moet Imperial is good, but only a few bottles were out there being enjoyed. They couldn’t even spring for Bud Light bottles so I can’t honestly put that above the Bruins. Then, there’s the Red Sox in third. Winning the World Series after EIGHTY SIX years of losing, and you pick a no-name bottle from Missouri? It just doesn’t seem right to me (not that the wine isn’t good, because I don’t know, but it just seems weird).

I hope you enjoyed my little celebration sparkler post today. Hopefully there’s much more to come in the next few weeks. Cheers!

Photo Credits: 1. Boston.com 2. Foxwoods Facebook page. Photo here.