We don't have to set ourselves resolutions which are unachievable - and if so, only ones which are sensible such as promising only to drink good wine... We do just fine leading fulfilled lives without them.
We care about our loved ones and make sure they know it. We defy all that is evil. We denounce falseness. All of these can be achieved throughout the year regardless of resolutions. After the 366 days of the coming leap year, there will be another New Year's Eve and following behind it the symbolic New Year's young boy. As we take stock on the previous year to the sound of those midnight bells and anthems, perhaps we can be justified in feeling proud of ourselves. Let's drink to that.
Happy new year 2012!

      This issue focuses on the grape harvest together with the celebrations which accompany this. Camera in hand, we have paid visits to a number of wine harvest celebrations and bring you reports from each. Naturally it wasn't possible to make it to them all, however despite this, we hope it presents a colourful mosaic of how we choose to welcome the new crop here in Bohemia and Moravia.
So why not celebrate this year's good harvest along with them? Should you not have had the chance to do so yet, the next opportunity awaiting us all will be the Saint Martin celebrations, which according to tradition, is a wine already ripe for the pallete, and traditionally accompanied by roasted goose. The Svatomartinske wine celebrations commence on 11.11 at 11 o'clock in the morning!

      After last year's poor harvest, it fortunately looks like grapes will be in sufficient supply this year. As long as the sun shines during the Indian summer, it will be nice and of good quality. This of course will bring joy to winemakers and wine lovers alike. They will be happy until they find out how much the struggle for customers has intensified on the market. I'm certainly curious to see how the various producers cope with this. Today we are introducing some of them to you.
One thing's for sure, those who make it will not only be offering excellent quality inside a bottle but will also manage to draw attention to themselves in a different way - through results from competitions, good public relations and clever marketing.

      Already in our last issue we came along with several tips of which beautiful wines to accompany the season and today we will be continuing in this vein. We have prepared two topical holiday specials. Anyone who has planned their holiday on the Adriatic coast in Croatia will find twenty pages of the most detailed report so far in the history of our magazine including tips on the best wines in Dalmatia, tried and tested in person only a few days ago. On top of this there are 8 more pages about Croatian cuisine in our gastronomy section.
Should you have decided to stay closer to home for your holidays this year, we also have a second holiday special on offer - Lower Austria (Niederösterreich). Only a few kilometres over our southern most borders, we find a region with fantastic wines admired the world over - Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal as well as other wonderful wine-rich places close to the Danube all the way to Vienna and a little bit beyond.

      May is upon us and with it the season for planning summer holidays. If you haven't yet managed to figure out where to go, perhaps this issue of SOMMELIER will offer a helping hand. Using our own initiative and without any kind of support or motivation from others, we decided to devote two holiday specials to the Alsace region and Moldova. You´ll find there big wines and delightful gastronomy.

      This issue will be slightly different than is usually the case. While we're on the topic of competitions - we have reported on an especially successful one in Chisinau, Moldova, the famous one in Paris, France, the young wines oriented one in Brno, Moravia. Not only can you read about this but also about the Sommeliers European Championship in Strasbourg. And of course much much more!