50. Celebrating 50 Episodes...and The Journey to Get HERE!!

There is no wine content in this episode, except for how it relates to the making of 50 episodes of The Wineitupanotch Podcast! Today, we are celebrating reaching this milestone, taking a look back at how we got to 50 considering all of the ups, downs, blunders and successes...and looking forward to consider what comes next!

With a heart full of gratitude, thank you for listening!

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Transcript

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[Anshu Grover]

Hello and welcome to The Wineitupanotch Podcast, a podcast where we talk about wine, life, and everything in between. My name is Anshu Grover, I am a certified specialist of wine, and I'm your host and I'm so thrilled that you've decided to join me today. Thank you for doing so.

Welcome to episode 50 of The Wineitupanotch Podcast!

I am seriously so excited to say the word "50". I don't even really have words for it. I could never have imagined that I would reach this stage! Even though I started this journey of the podcast on a very big high - I'd have to say I had a lot of confidence in the fact that I would podcast and do lots of things - but as I went along the journey, it got hard. I'm not going to lie.

So at different points, I really sort of struggled to imagine myself reaching a number like 50 podcast episodes. And now that I'm here today, I want to take a moment to pause and really celebrate this! 

This episode is not going to be about wine per se, but more about my journey to this point. It's really a reflection, a chance for me to sit back and share what this journey has been like and I hope to not only do a great reflection for myself and have that opportunity to really celebrate what I consider to be a milestone, but also maybe to inspire somebody who might catch this episode and hear it and you know, something about it resonates with you, the listener, if you're this person, and just makes you maybe believe in what is possible for you. No matter where you sit today to where you want to go, anything is possible. Certainly, my journey with this podcast has shown me that, and so I hope that that might have that impact for somebody who's listening.

So here's how we're going to do this podcast episode.

In case you don't know me or know my story, I'm going to really start at the start and tell you a little bit about where I started as a person and a professional before I made my journey into wine. Then I'm going to talk a little bit about what that journey into wine looked like.

And in that part we'll start to get into the podcast because that's a really big part of the story and I'd love to just talk to you a little bit about what I have done to put this podcast together, including some of the tools I've used or not used, and some of the ways in which I've kept myself motivated and some of the things that I've learned along the way. And then maybe let's finish off with a little bit of a look to the future to see what I think, standing here today at 50 episodes, the future trajectory of the podcast may look like.

So with that, let's get into it.

Okay, starting at the start - and I'm not going to lie, this is a little weird because I don't actually spend a ton of time talking about myself and my journey all the time, but you know what? I think it's important - so starting at the start, not too long ago, I actually was working in the corporate world.

I think a lot of people know that about me if you've been following me for a little while, either on my social media channels or here on the podcast. And actually I am a trained CPA, so I'm a chartered professional accountant. You know, I can really understand numbers, I spent a lot of my professional life up until the time that I decided to pivot into wine working on everything from financial reporting to risk management and governance and strategy, and a lot of different topics across different industries.

 In the beginning of 2021, there was a change in my employment, and when it came to thinking about what I wanted to do next, I just took a moment to pause - actually with my husband's encouragement - and think about what I wanted to do, rather than just go in the direction of what was pulling me at the time.

I just decided that I maybe didn't want to go down the path that everybody would expect I would. And so I took a little bit of a break and I took the opportunity to think about what I really wanted to do.

And prior to this, a few months earlier - it's really interesting when you look at these things in hindsight and you know what has happened when and what was serendipitous at the time, but you didn't really realize it - so a few months prior to this point of change of employment in my career, my sisters - I have two sisters - had actually reached out to me and both of them had separately counseled me and coached me and encouraged me to start an Instagram account around wine.

Now, it's important for me to explain that at this point, I was nothing more than an enthusiast. I had no formal studies when it came to wine, but I had done my fair share of travel and obviously my fair share of drinking, and I had a very deep interest and from time to time on my personal Instagram account, I would post about wine. And so when they saw this and, you know, them knowing me as well as they did, they both reached out to me and separately said, "Hey, why don't you start a wine centered Instagram account? There's a lot of people out there that are pursuing their hobbies and their interests and creating these accounts. And if you're worried (because I was at the time!) about being associated with the account, you can keep it faceless, but this will just give you a chance to really explore your interest in wine and you know, who knows where it'll go?".

And I took a little bit of time to sit and think about it, but something about what they said resonated with me.

Now, I was at this point fully employed in the corporate world. I was climbing the corporate ladder, very busy running a large team. Certainly, I was not thinking about leaving and starting a career in wine. But I did have a very deep interest in wine. I did want to be part of a community that was focused on wine, and I thought, you know what? Why not? I've got a ton of photos and I've got information and content from what I drink and what I like to drink. So let me start this account.

So I had been running that Instagram account for a couple of months, light touch, keeping it faceless, and then this change in employment happened and I started to think about what I wanted to do.

And during that time that I had been on Instagram, really for the first time seriously in my life outside of posting photos of my children and myself on vacation to a very small personal account audience, I had been picking up on the fact that in fact, the wine world is large, it's global, and there's a lot of people in it. There's a lot of people doing really interesting things and talking openly online on platforms like Instagram and others about their love for wine and their knowledge of wine. And it really opened my eyes up to the fact that, you know, there was something there that I was quite interested in.

I really looked up to a lot of the people that I was following at the time, and I still do - I still follow most of those accounts. And I was really impressed by their level of knowledge and their level of involvement in the industry. And I think that that awareness that had opened up for me permeated my thinking at the time that I started thinking about what I wanted to do next and it was really what helped me to decide “hey, look, I think I actually want to pursue wine professionally. I want to build a business in wine, I want to become a wine expert.” So after a good discussion with my husband (and he was very supportive), I went off on this journey to further my knowledge, to actually officially cement my wine knowledge by taking courses and to start to build a business around wine.

And when I was ideating around what I wanted to do, there were a few things that I thought about and I have actually explored lots and lots of different things and built my business around a lot of pillars. But interestingly, one of those things was a podcast.

And the podcast is very, very interesting to me because I actually did not listen to a lot of podcasts for most of my life.

I wasn't really a voracious consumer of podcasts until about let's say a year and a half to two years prior to the point where I started thinking about what I wanted to do next. So again, we talk about serendipitous moments and encounters and information that's shared with you and how things can evolve to a certain point.

So going back to the podcast point, I started listening to a podcast called The Daily by the New York Times, and it's really a news-based podcast, and I started listening to that because I had a colleague at work who listened to it and spoke very highly of being able to get information in a very quick amount of time that she was then able to use, during the workday, and she didn't have to spend a lot of time understanding what the highest level news story was in the world in that day. So while I was driving back and forth to work, I started listening to The Daily.

And then I was having conversations with a friend of mine at the time, a colleague. Her name is Jackie, in case Jackie ever hears this podcast episode. And Jackie and I used to talk a lot about wine, right, because we were both really interested in wine. We both traveled a lot. We were sort of at the same level in our career. So we had career stuff to talk about and we were working on things together, but we would also spend time talking about wine, talking about our trips and I really looked up to Jackie as well because she had a ton of knowledge that I didn't. At that point, Jackie had already taken courses and she was already registered in the WSET Level Three course, and she had done the WSET level two course successfully.

And truly at that point I knew very little formally, and she once suggested to me that I should listen to a podcast I still think is fabulous and I would recommend to anybody who listens to this podcast and is interested in wine, and that's called "Wine for Normal People".

So she suggested that podcast to me and I downloaded it and I started to listen. And that IS an excellent podcast. There's so much great information shared. The host is super engaging, very knowledgeable, and I started listening to it quite voraciously. And that then opened up my mind to the fact that there are podcasts about wine out there.

Now, there was a big difference between my level of knowledge at the time and the level of knowledge of the podcasters I was listening to. So again, it felt very pie in the sky, but I think I started to build this idea around podcasting and maybe having a podcast one day, maybe being knowledgeable enough to have a podcast and maybe pursuing formal education when it came to wine.

 So all of these different things were happening and incubating in my day-to-day life.

Fast forward to this moment where I'm thinking about making this pivot into wine. By this point, I should say I had taken the WSET Level Two course. I started the Instagram account and then a little bit after that, I'd say a few months later, I had decided to make the jump and take the WSET Level Two course.

So now at this stage, I've decided to make this pivot. I feel a little more confident in my knowledge. I feel that this is something I really want to commit myself to, and this idea of a podcast comes back to me and I feel..... I can just remember myself at that time..... I feel drawn to the notion of sitting down in front of a mic and sharing what I know.

You know, I've always been a strong communicator. It's been one of my strong points as a professional. I can write well, I can communicate orally well and present, and so I thought that it was something that I could do, but, I was pretty certain that the barriers were pretty large because I actually had no clue how to get a podcast up and running. 

I can literally, to this moment, in this moment, remember sitting in my bed on a Saturday and Sunday morning and ideating on things like the podcast name, the topics, doing research online to see what it takes to start a podcast, what's the best way to start a podcast? I had zero idea on equipment. I had no idea what a podcast host was. I didn't know how I could record something and then upload it or edit it - like zero knowledge. I literally decided that I was going to do this, and then taught myself through studying on Google and watching YouTube videos how I could get this done.

It's really, you know, quite humbling and interesting to look back at that point now and look at the person that I was then with, to be honest, a reasonable degree of admiration. 

I really do admire the tenacity that I had at that moment to think that I could totally take on this new identity and do something completely different and be successful at it. And, you know, I ask myself what made me have that confidence. And I think it was probably a mix of wanting to do something different badly enough, looking at what I was strong at and where I thought I wanted to go, and then just plain old fashioned chutzpah - you know, like feet to the ground, nose to the grind, get it done, figure it out.

I will say that I listened to other podcasters. I started to build up my repertoire of podcasts that I liked to listen to. And there are certain podcasters that I still listen to today that talk a lot about mindset and things like imposter syndrome, and always feeling like you're not ready, but taking the right actions anyways.

And so that mindset shift, that focus on what can I actually do even though I don't feel ready, was very important at that moment and I can still remember once I sort of figured out the tech - and we'll talk about the tech in a moment because it's quite the joke how I started - uh, but once I sort of figured out the scaffolded framework of how I was going to kind of pull this podcast together and what I was going to call it, I then sat down and just literally forced myself to record.

I remember deciding that I would record… I think I set a target of 10 episodes… before I published anything. I don't think I actually got to 10. I think I recorded something along the lines of six or seven podcast episodes before, um, I started publishing, but I just made that decision and I remember sitting down and thinking, “oh my gosh, like, what am I doing? I don't think I can do this. I don't think I'm the right person. I don't think I know anything that's worth sharing. I don't think I could talk about wine for long enough”...who the audience was going to be. I mean, there was just so much going on in my head, but I can literally remember and picture myself in this moment, forcing myself to sit down in a white chair that we have in our bedroom.

It’s a beautiful white chair, very comfortable, but very uncomfortable in that moment! And literally pushing record and forcing myself to speak. I did some research and took some notes for those earlier episodes, but if you go back and listen to them, you'll definitely hear (I think especially after listening to this) the fact that I was feeling my way out in terms of what I wanted to talk about and what this was going to become, and frankly, it was also COVID so I was kind of stuck in the house with my children really feeling life, really experiencing what life is like when you're trapped in a home close to your family, when your identity is changing, when you yourself are exploring new things, new avenues, new ways of being. And I think that is reflected in the content that I initially put out.

Now let's go to what I did and how I did it because I think that's important. A lot of people ask me, and I have to be completely honest - why would I want to do anything else in a reflection? 

It was so bare bones it, it really, you know, is funny.

I mean, it's still bare bones. If you watch my podcast on YouTube, you'll see that there's not a lot to this. Like, I don't have a formal podcast studio. I don't have a lot of equipment. I basically, to this day, just record with a mic that I bought on Amazon because I read a bunch of reviews saying that this is a reasonable mic at a reasonable price.

And you know, I've got a piece of software that I use for editing - actually two pieces of software. And then I have a podcast host and that's about it. And it's myself who does all of the work. I do the editing, I do the recording, I do the post-production promotion, which is light touch. You know, I'm hoping to get some help with this, I've talked about that on the podcast before, but I haven't made that move yet. 

So all that to say, it's still very bare bones, but it was super bare bones when I started. And I share that because I want you to know that if you want to do something, you don't need to have perfection in order to get started. You need to have the mindset of, I can do this, this is something I want to do, I can figure this out as I go along, I'm a smart person. 

And frankly, today in the world, there are so many resources available. There's so many ways to connect with people if you want to ask questions. There are also a lot of ways to anonymously gather the information, to test and learn, to practice and figure out whatever it is you want to, that the fact that you don't have everything perfectly figured out at the outset should never be a barrier in my mind. And in my experience, it has always served me well to get out there and to learn as I grow. That is true, not only in my wine journey, it's also true in my life. It's also true in the professional life that I had prior to this point. So I want that to be a message that you walk away from if you are still listening - that you don't need to know everything and everything doesn't need to be perfect and everything will not be perfect.

So let's go back to what those early days look like.

I've already talked about the mindset piece. Now let me talk about equipment, which was, minimal, skeletal at best. And again, if you've been following this podcast from the start, you'll know some of this because I do believe I talk about it as I'm doing those earlier episodes.

Honestly, I did not even have a good computer at that point in time. I had a reasonable phone. It was nothing special. And then I had an iPad. But I really was not an avid iPad user.

But in my research I learned that the GarageBand application, which I still use today - could be used to record voice memos into, or, or you know, your own voice as opposed to just creating music, that you could actually create musical loops in Garageband as well, and that that was a real low cost and low barrier to entry way of putting a podcast together.

So that was my equipment stack. It was literally a very basic iPad. I don't even think it was the most current model. Certainly, it was not the fanciest iPad that you could get! And a Garageband app. And I just literally watched a few YouTube videos and taught myself how to push record, record my own voice, and then how within GarageBand itself, because I couldn't really figure out the whole editing side of things - so within GarageBand itself, to edit the recording and that's what I did! 

I sat down, I opened up the Garageband application. It's funny to think about it now, but to be honest, it works perfectly well and would still work today if I wanted to do it that way. And I'll come back to that in a moment. I would open up the Garageband application, I would record into it, and then I would spend some time doing some editing on my iPad right in the app, and then uploading my episode once I was comfortable with it to my podcast host, which is Buzzsprout. 

You don't have to use Buzzsprout. I think it's a fantastic platform for a beginner, and I still use it to today, however there are other platforms that are just as good and are easy to use and then there are more complex ones as you become more sophisticated, which to this day, I still don't consider myself sophisticated enough to have graduated from Buzzsprout so I'm still using that.

So I was recording into GarageBand, editing in GarageBand, uploading to Buzzsprout, and I did my podcast art on Canva. I want to say I still had the free plan at that time, but that might not be true because I was already pretty, uh, steeped into, you know, my business so I think I might have had (and I still do have) a paid subscription to Canva and that's where I created my podcast art.

So that was all that was involved in putting together my first, I don't know, it might be, you know, 15 episodes. 

I uploaded my very first podcast episode on February 28th, 2022. It did actually take me a reasonable amount of time to get to the point of feeling comfortable enough to pursue my interest in having a podcast. I made the career pivot, very early 2021. I started doing different things. I meaningfully moved into the wine space and having a business in wine and pursuing further studies in about late spring, early summer of 2021. So it was another, you know, six or seven months from there before I pushed record and uploaded things and really put myself out there with a podcast. 

Again, I think that's important because I, I don't want anybody to feel that I'm suggesting that these things - when you want to do something new - are not hard. They are. But you can get there. You know, if you've got a vision for yourself and there's something that you want to do, just hold onto that vision and I believe you can get there. Looking at my journey, I can see that it took me some time, but I did get there.

Now let's do a little double click here on the education side of the equation. I mentioned that I had pursued the WSET Level 2 shortly before the end of 2020. Then in 2021, I did my WSET Level 3 and then not that much later started on the WSET Level 4 Diploma journey.

I also, during that time, was pursuing the Certified Specialist of Wine through the Wine Educators Society in the U.S. So I was doing a lot of self-educating at this time too, which obviously helped in terms of coming up with content for the podcast.

Now reflecting on the podcast itself, if you go back and listen to the very first episode, and I laugh about this all the time with, you know, everybody, I started off thinking I would podcast daily, which is hilarious to me now because podcasting is not a joke. It takes a lot of time to come up with ideas and then sit in front of a mic and share your ideas, and then actually do the editing and post and promote, and all of those things. I mean, it's easily a one week cycle. Although I obviously didn't understand that well enough or I thought I was superwoman, so I started off by thinking I was going to do this daily. That very quickly dropped to weekly, and then I thought, okay, biweekly. And then I think at some point I thought, okay, I'll publish a podcast episode monthly.

And I dunno, somewhere along the way, I have just found my own cadence and it's not as consistent as I would like it to be, but it is consistent in that every time I sort of walk away from the podcast mic and think, "oh my gosh, I think that's probably the last time I'm going to do this." And look, I'll be honest, sometimes it can be a lonely journey.

You're literally sitting in your own space. I do have an office, but maybe you don't even have an office. A lot of podcasters hang out in their closet while they record podcast episodes. You're by yourself. You're, you know, looking at a mic, staring at a, a camera or a computer screen as I do. And hoping that someone's going to listen to what you are talking about and oftentimes 

 It takes a while, right, to build up the audience, to build up momentum. And some podcast episodes do really well and others really don't. And that is a very up and down journey. It can feel lonely at times, but the fact that I kept coming back is something that I'm proud of because sometimes I would think to myself, "okay, I don't know if I should be doing this. I really don't know if anybody's listening, if anybody cares, if this is actually worth my time." 

But I will say that over the 49 episodes to date, and this one, the 50th episode, which I am so happily celebrating today, I have consistently found that there is an audience that's listening. I have been very pleasantly surprised by positive feedback that's unexpected from people that I don't know, reaching out to me saying that they have loved a podcast episode, or they love the way in which I share information, or they're really inspired by my journey. There's people encouraging me to keep going. There's people sometimes reaching out and saying, “you haven't published a podcast episode in a while. What's going on? All good? Are you still podcasting?” And all of those things keep me going. 

I also actually do really enjoy sharing my knowledge and information when it comes to wine. I love the idea that I'm able to help people understand and appreciate wine a little bit more. And you know, I think it's meaningful to share your knowledge and contribute to other people in some way. 

Another thing that I love about having the podcast is that it does give me the opportunity to record what's happening in my life, and to record what I'm thinking about and to record what I'm learning in a given moment. And in the end I've got this treasure trove of moments that are available for me to go back to, that are available for me to share with others and that I think do inspire people beyond just wine….I think, you know, there's more here. There's a connection that transcends just the topic of wine. It's really about life. It's about inspiration. It's about finding joy and happiness, and it's about sharing other people's stories. So those are some of the things that have kept me coming back.

And as I said, I haven't been as consistent as I would necessarily like to be. I haven't gotten to the point where I have hired people to help me. I think that is something that I need to do as a next step. But I have gotten to the point where I am today, recording my 50th episode. I'm very proud of all of the content that I've put out and the people's lives that I've touched. And you know what? That's kind of a special thing!

Looking back, some of the highlights of this journey that I'm particularly proud of include the interviews that I've been able to have. I've got multiple episodes where I've been able to interview guests and really share perspectives outside of my own.

I think another high point is the evolution of my own knowledge and my own style. If you go back to those earlier podcast episodes, particularly the first one, you know, I was unsure of what I was doing. I don't think I was really sharing knowledge at a very deep level, certainly not the way I do now as the holder of a Level Four Diploma in Wine from the WSET. So, I'm proud of the evolution of my knowledge and the evolution in the message that I'm sharing and the content that I'm sharing. In particular, the Diving into Burgundy series that we kicked off in 2025 is something that I'm proud of. And I'm really looking to continue to provide that kind of in depth and specialized information, those bite-sized pieces of knowledge that can be consumed, taken away, and used by wine lovers, wine enthusiasts, wine newbies, and wine experts alike. I really try to make sure that I cover that spectrum so there's something here for everybody.

Now a reflection and a discussion of this nature would not be complete if I didn't talk about some of the things that have been unexpected and or frustrating along the way.

Going back to basics, I think one of the things that really surprised me that I wasn't expecting was the resistance and friction that I've experienced while recording this podcast.

There have been times where it's been hard for me to get myself to sit down at the mic and record. There have been times when I've been recording and I'm like, you know, just flabbergasted. There's nothing really coming out that feels good or worthy of sharing.

There's also the piece around feeling like, why me? You know, why should I be the one with a podcast? I don't have anything special to share. So that sort of imposter syndrome side of things has been a surprise too.

I've also actually been quite surprised by how the tech can really confound you. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what technology to use, and again, I will come back to what technology I'm using right now in case you're interested in a moment.

But you know, I thought that I would sort of look at that once and be done with it. But the reality is like many things in life, as you keep going along a path, there's always more that unfolds. There's more you can do, there's more ways you can evolve, and there's tons of research that you can always be doing about how you can get better, and that was definitely something that surprised me.

I've also been really surprised by people's willingness to sit down and have a chat with me about their interest in the podcast. 

I'd say the last thing that has been a frustration in this journey is sometimes not having the time to sit down and do things exactly as I want to. I can be a little bit of a perfectionist, and so sometimes I want everything to be absolutely perfect. And it was actually my son who gave me a fantastic piece of advice when one day I was saying that it had taken me literally hours to edit a very small clip of one of the podcast episodes that I had recorded and I still had so much more to go.

And he said to me very innocently, he said, "Mom, why does your podcast have to be absolutely perfect? You are the only one that's there. If there's some ums and ahs and mistakes, it's not the end of the world." And straight from the mouth of babes as they say - it really resonated with me and it struck me as pretty smart and something that I should listen to.

And so I started, after that, easing off of the need for perfection and not letting that get in the way as much and finding smaller periods and opportunities to record whenever I could. And I think that is another piece of advice I'd give anybody who wants to do something like this. 

And going back to that notion of needing everything to be perfect or needing to know everything, it's just not necessary. You know what? Just sit down, you know, record if you want to have a podcast, if you want to have a YouTube channel, just start recording. If you want to have an Instagram account, just post the pictures. You will figure things out as you go along, and you'll find that authenticity is important and raw and real is appreciated. It doesn't always have to be the best in order for you to keep going on the path that you want to go along.

Okay, so let's fast forward to today. I keep talking about the fact that I will address, what do I do today? So today, I do have my dedicated office space, which if you've ever watched any of my video content, you'll see me in my office a lot. This is where I spend my days. And in terms of equipment, I have evolved things so I do not use my iPad any longer. Today I use a Blue Tech mic. I also have a little windscreen on it and a cover, which helps to deal with some of the p-p’s and the t-t’s - you know, the popping sounds that you can hear sometimes, which you will definitely hear in my earlier episodes.

I use a MacBook Pro, so that is my main piece of technology for all of my editing and even recording into. And I use a software called Descript, which I really like for its editing capabilities. It also transcribes content so I don't have to work as hard on my transcriptions. If you've been following me for a little while, you'll know that it is very important to me to provide transcripts whenever I can. Some of my earlier episodes don't have transcripts, but the later ones do. And that is because I'm a big believer in accessibility. I have a daughter with severe disabilities and anything and everything that anyone can do to make her life easier and for her to be included in things is so helpful. And so what I can do I want to do. So even though transcribing the podcast can take a ton of time, I always make sure that I have a transcription and Descript really helps with that.

And then once I've done my producing and editing in Descript, I then transfer things to GarageBand. So good old GarageBand is still a feature of my workflow! And in GarageBand, I tinker around a little bit more. I overlay my music, and then I move on over to Buzzsprout; as I said, I'm still on Buzzsprout. I upload my podcast, my transcript, my podcast art and that's the way the process goes. As I said, it's not really big frills still, but there's more added now and there's more to the process. There's more touch points now before I publish something. 

But I want to reemphasize that it's still very low key. And I like it that way. You know what? It gives me the opportunity to do what I want. In fact, if you've listened to the podcast episode before this one and some of the other ones that I've done, I sometimes use voice notes on my phone. Sometimes I literally will just open up the voice notes app and I will record a podcast episode into my phone. And that way I can do it when I'm on the go or when inspiration strikes. Like I said, episode 49 is an example of that where literally I was not in the most opportune of situations, but I wanted to talk about something, so I pulled out my phone and recorded a voice memo…. and then from there I take it through the process of editing and publishing. I like that sort of ability to be able to just do what I want to do when I want to do it. It suits me for now, and I think that it is one of the reasons that I continue to keep publishing information and content on the podcast because I can find little ways to sneak it in when life as a mom, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner is just too busy.

So to end this reflection, I want to spend a few minutes talking about where I think the podcast goes from here. 

I don't have a firm plan at this moment in time, but I can say that while I sit here at the 50th episode, I do definitely want to continue The Wineitupanotch Podcast. I do want to continue to bring deep, meaningful conversations to the podcast. I see myself continuing to do deep dives on certain areas and topics.

I see myself continuing to interview winemakers and industry leaders whenever I can. I want to continue to tell important and meaningful stories that touch people and that reflect what the wine industry's actually about.

I think I also want to keep bringing some of my personality and my personal life to the podcast. 

And I think what I'd like to do is…..you know what? Do some equipment and process upgrades! I think it's time. I had kind of made myself a promise when I was at about episode 40 that when I hit episode 50, I would do this reflection and celebration, and that I would allow this to be an opportunity for me to get myself a little bit of razzle dazzle as it relates to the podcast.

So maybe a new podcast mic. Maybe a good set of podcast mics to take on the road so I don't have to speak into my iPhone. Um, and, you know, maybe some new podcast art. Let's see. That might be a good place to start! 

All that to say that I do have plans to continue this podcast and to continue to put content out there. And the next goal is 75 podcast episodes. So let's see, when we get there, if we can have another reflection and another celebration together.

And now I would like to thank you, the listener. This isn't a podcast that has hundreds of thousands of downloads. It's still quite organic and small, so I'm not doing it for the fame and glory per se, because I think there's very little fame and glory right now relative to the amount of work that goes into it. But it does mean a lot to me that people listen. There are listeners all around the world. There are listeners of all different stripes, and as I said, you know, sometimes people reach out to me and it really, really does make me so happy to hear from someone and hear that they have been touched by my voice, that they've given their time over to listen to me and it keeps me going.

And you know, for that, I really want to thank you if you're still with me. This is a long podcast episode that has nothing to do with wine. It just is about this journey that I've been on, and that really means a lot to me if you're still here. So thank you for continuing to listen. Thank you for turning up. Thank you for being a fan of The Wineitupanotch Podcast. If you like, share a comment, you know, that means the world to me. 

And if you're just new for some reason, if you're just picking this up on the 50th episode, I would really love if you would go back and listen to some of the content in the library. There's tons of really good information there that'll help you to understand the world of wine better. And if you are that person that's just picked this up at the 50th episode and then goes backwards, please do drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to know who you are and what you found useful.

And that actually goes for every listener. I take comments and that input very seriously. 

And you know what? One last thing I have to share is that I think it's about time that I go back to podcast episode one and maybe do an intro to that podcast episode. I don't want to delete it - it's very authentic to that moment of time. But I think I need to put an overlay on it, explaining that this was very early in the journey and that things have changed. So yeah, I, I'll add that to the list of things that I want to do in the near future!

And with that, I will thank you for joining me for this - the 50th episode of The Wineitupanotch Podcast!

I am so grateful for your time and your attention. Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you in Episode 51. 

And until then, as always, I wish you lots of peace, love, light, and of course, fantastic wine.

Until next time, cheers!