Dear Right Way to Travel Reader,

In lieu of this week’s regularly scheduled e-letter, we’re turning to an annual, end-of-year tradition: our New Year's Countdown.

From now until December 31, instead of your regular e-letter, I'll send you each day a short, useful travel tip. A tip to help you make 2009 the year you start to live "richer," travel better, fund your wanderlust and, quite simply, enjoy life more...

We begin, below, with today's tip -- always useful around the holidays -- about how to pick a good, low-cost wine...

Enjoy!

Lori Allen
Director, AWAI Travel Division

P.S. In addition to practical tips, I'm going to include in each day's dispatch a short profile of one of our favorite resources, too. A proven tool you can use to help you transform your dreams of getting paid to travel into a reality in 2009. They're all on sale right now... but only until midnight, December 31. Until then, you can save hundreds...

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December 17, 2008
The Right Way to Travel
New Year's Countdown, Tip #1: Finding cheap wine that doesn’t offend
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This year, the American Association of Wine Economists conducted a tasting study with wines that ranged from $1.65 to $150 per bottle. The 506 wine tasters were unaware of the prices... and generally liked the more expensive wines less.

Proof that when it comes to wine, a higher price tag doesn’t necessarily buy you a better bottle.

Here are some tips for picking good, cheap wines:

** Try fancier grocery stores, like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or World Market. My husband and I like to buy $4 bottles of wine from Trader Joe’s. So far, we’ve found a few we love... and a few we can do without. Some of these stores will have a wine person on staff who can suggest a good, cheap wine, too.

** Buy a cheap wine from a good year. For example, 2005 was a phenomenal year for red Bordeaux wines. Even the cheaper ones jumped in quality. So if you’re looking for red, you might do well with a 2005 Bordeaux. To find good years for wines from the U.S. and other countries, you can check wine year charts. Here’s an easy-to-understand one that charts the Western U.S., Europe, and beyond: http://www.winesquire.com/articles/vchart.htm

Remember… when it comes down to it, what really matters is whether or not you like it. Get yourself a wine label journal and save the labels from the bottles you like the most (and those you want to avoid).

You can get wine label journals online by searching for “wine label journal” at Google.com.

Lori Allen
Director, AWAI Travel Division

P.S. It helps to know a little about wine when you’re including dining options in your travel stories. Adding a food element is practically a must these days if you want to sell your articles to magazines or newspapers. Travel editor for the Denver post and former food critic, Kyle Wagner, gave us the inside scoop on how to write about food -- and make your travel articles more saleable -- at our Breaking into Food Writing Workshop last June. You can get a copy of the recordings of that event -- plus the writer’s guidelines to over 60 publications that publish food-related articles – here: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/eat/website

Grab a copy now -- before December 31 -- and you save $56. Plus shipping is FREE: http://www.thetravelwriterslife.com/eat/website

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