It was a truly eventful year for us in the blog, and it took us a while to figure out how to properly summarise 2017 without sounding too full of ourselves. We decided to apply a couple of principles for this entry:
- Counting our blessings – Sounds cheesy, but there’s something quite grounding about doing this… It puts our daily activities (including the work that we put into this blog) into perspective
- A sense of collaboration – We decided to get a couple of friends to give their opinions on their favourite articles from the previous year (so it’s not all about us)
That said, here’s a list of our top 15 articles for 2017 (in no particular order):
Confession: I wanted to go a different direction on my favourite infographic being Wine 101 which dealt with opening bottles of still wine because it was our first Infographic (and you never forget your first!). When we asked friends, however, it was unanimous: Raise Your Glass was their favourite because, as our partner Inna from grafikGiraffe put it, “I don’t drink a lot, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to know the type of glasses I should/want to have in my future home”.
She also promises she wasn’t biased because they made the beautiful artwork. 😉
Learning how to do “cupping” during a coffee tour
Echoing our sentiment about never forgetting your first, it was my first trip down under, and it was incredibly memorable and educational. I will never forget (wine speak alert!) that Hunter Valley has fog and is the reason why they produce a very unique style of Australian Shiraz. Also, my palate for coffee has forever been spoiled.
It was our first time to have a guest writer for the blog, and we were all too happy to have one of our favourite people, Alex Sawit, do the article. Bonus points for sharing the same views on wine and drinks, so he fit well on the blog.
It was one of Chia’s articles for the blog, and she showed how her passion for coffee turned into an obsession a daily habit of turning the ritual of making a morning brew into an art.
I Get By With A Little Whisky and Friends
Speaking of Chia and collaboration, this was a major one involving my sister from another mister, Paulette, and Chia’s awesome photography. Paulette said that it was one of her favorites because she was in it (haha), but I liked it because it was great to see how she turned from a whisky novice to knowing that there is more to the drink than being an incredibly rough manly beverage.
Even the benches are profound
It was fun to recount the adventures Chia and I had in Parisian speakeasies…
Never Sleeping, Always Drinking
Employees Only (EO)
…And the ones Chad and I had with Francis in NYC (global barhopping FTW!).
Speaking of the US, it was mind-blowing to have my first Facebook Live with the amazing Ms. Molly Koscina discussing Filipino food and US wine pairing (the link is still up here for those who missed it).
A Focus on Fabulously Brilliant Filipina Alcohol Professionals
This has got to be one of my favourite articles. It gives a great insight on what it’s like to be a woman in the wine industry. The subject, the brilliant Ms. Carla Perez Santos, was absolutely perfect for the article.
Where Can Your PHP1,000 Take You?
As Inna said, we don’t do clickbait articles for the sake of it; we make sure people still learn something from us. Granted, we released the article during the time when people weren’t too happy about a specific political issue in the Philippines, but I think we wanted to use a little bit of our (snarky) voice to raise some awareness on the issue.
Welcomed in the Arms of an Angel
I’ve had quite a few life-altering experiences in my wine career, and I must say that this ranks high up there. I’ve made a friend in Bordeaux, met one of my wine idols, and was proud to be a pinay in one of the most legendary wineries on earth. Disclaimer: The trip happened in September 2016 but we purposefully timed the release around our Independence Day in June 2017 to show a little Pinoy Pride.
A Return to Casual Food and Wine Pairing
It has always been a direction of ours on the blog (and we promise more) to do articles like these because we firmly believe that wine shouldn’t always be fancy… In fact, in most wine producing parts of the world, wine is just a normal part of dinner (or lunch, no judgment). One of our goals is to get people to realise that, yes, almost any food can be paired with wine, including pinoy cuisine.
In relation to casual wine cultures, the selection that our friends have come up with in this entry also introduces the notion that good wine doesn’t need to be expensive.
As Inna put it: COZ GAME OF THRONES. I had a blast collaborating with Chad for this one (Inna had a blast imagining Chad having the drinks I recommended with the characters he had in mind)*.
We’ve never gotten so many compliments on an article before. We honestly didn’t intend for that to happen when we put the article out, but we were glad that people liked the sense of optimism the article had during trying times.
With that in mind, here’s to an optimistic view on 2018. Eat, drink (in moderation), and be merry! Cheers!
*Chad, LOTR next? 😉
