Corked wine is on the decline

I enjoy reading different wine magazines as it helps me to stay up to date with the wine world as well as finding topics to blog about.  Part of that collection of regular reading materials is certainly the Wine Spectator.
While I might disagree at times with their ratings, they have great articles and people like Matt Kramer really can stir the pot and.  Anyways, last week I read the article about less cork taint from James Laube and the content of that article made me very happy.
Based on his report in 2011, out of roughly 3,100 bottles of California wine topped with cork (another 269 were topped with twist-offs), the percentage of "corked" wines dropped to 3.8 from 4.8 in 2010—making it the best year since we started tracking this.
In 2009, nearly 7 percent of the wines were corked, and in 2007, it was 9.5 percent.

Based on that, it seems true that with the right focus on a quality cork, this old proven wine bottle closure remains in the race!  And rightfully so!

For the complete Wine Spectator article from James Laube, please visit:
http://www.winespectator.com/blogs/show/id/44311

Wines' New Year resolution

As most of us have some sort of New Year's resolutions such as weight loss, going back to school, eating more healthy....my goodness, I don't think I could list all of the things some people are planning to accomplish in the "new year"!
Anyways, that got me thinking, what might be the New Year's resolution goal for wine?  Will Chardonnay continue to reduce the amount of over-oaked chardonnays coming to the market out of California?  Will Zinfandel amongst other grape varietals continue to fight to get on top? Will cork be able to have a strong comeback against all these screw cap lovers that are out there?  The questionnaire could go on and on.
Most people properly will try to lose some weight this year and to accomplish that, cut back the drinking of alcohol since that has the most empty calories period! 
But why?  So that you can “fall off the wagon” come St. Patrick’s Day or the first summer grill out with friends?  Come on... let me help you here.