Talking Wine Burnout Blues

Some words about how I got here.

When I started writing about wine in the fall of 2007, the concept of getting burned out didn’t really register with me.  I knew in my heart that I needed to write more, and wine was a comfortable subject. Writing about wine, and ultimately spirits too, wasn’t a full-time job. But I always strived to treat it as seriously as if it were.

Timing is often everything and as the next couple of years passed, it’s fair to say Wine Blogging was having a big moment. I immersed myself in my own writing, and attended all the lunches, dinners and tasting events that were of interest. I ramped up my writing and was generally getting lots of good feedback. Somewhere early on I noticed that the flow of samples went from a steady drip to a solid flow, and eventually a near waterfall. This despite the fact that I was only personally greenlighting things of interest.

More time and work provided additional opportunity. I was lucky enough to contribute in one manner or another to sites such as Bullz-eye.com, Snooth, The Daily Meal, and quite a few more. Some, were regular monthly or weekly columns; others were irregular guest posts. Sprinkle in some light editorial opportunities, plus a bit of ghost writing and my plate was pretty full. I embraced every opportunity that moved me.

Not long after I started my blog, I was invited on media trips all over the world. With the advent of work, for all of the above-mentioned portals, and continued writing on my own, came more and more opportunity to travel farther, wider, and more often. As someone who has always enjoyed the journey as well as the destination, it was intoxicating. I was balancing my full-time job, with wine, my not full-time job. Although, if I’m being completely honest, writing became a second full time job. I accepted invitations to as many of the trips that I was genuinely interested in, as my PTO from work allowed.

This all continued along pretty swimmingly from my end, for years. Then came the end of 2019, and I recall being offered a truly exceptional trip for the coming March. On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of my interest, it was an 11. I had a couple of weeks before I had to commit, so I said, “sounds great, I’ll let you know if I can do it.”

Despite my incredible interest in the trip, I couldn’t fully commit in my head. After 5 or 6 days, I thought, “what if I don’t go?” With that simple thought, I felt a weight fall from my shoulders. I realized then that I probably needed a bit of a break. But it was more than just that. Over the prior year, a number of the larger outlets I was writing for regularly, dried up. A couple of them literally went away. A few others were simply no longer a fit for the sort of content I wanted to write. I was struggling to find outlets to place stories, outside of my own site, that would offer the greater set of eyes I felt these stories deserved. As a result, I ended up dropping the ball on some stories I should have covered, due to the lack of, in my view, appropriate outlet. I never once accepted a bottle of wine, dinner, or trip invite with any quid pro quo attached. But I’ve always felt a responsibility, to offer the best coverage I could to bottles and experiences that deserved it. The feeling that I was letting myself and others down didn’t feel good, but I couldn’t come up with a solution. In retrospect, of course my burnout wasn’t making it easier to find new outlets. If you’re reading this, and I dropped your ball, I’m genuinely sorry about that.

After I turned down the March 2020 trip, I decided to take things easy, at least for a few months in early 2020. No trips and just a couple of longform pieces for my blog felt very reasonable to me. The best laid plans and all that… March of 2020 actually arrived and all of a sudden traveling wasn’t an option anyway. In an eyeblink, virtual tastings of every shape and size were literally raging. All of a sudden, like everyone else I was home. Burnout, what burnout? I was bored and I accepted invites to all sorts of virtual tastings, as well as more wine samples than I had at any other time. I tasted more than ever, wrote a considerable amount, started making some video content as well, and generally acted as if my wine glass was on fire.

That continued for me until late in 2021, and then I just stopped. I decided I’d really take a few months off. This time it stuck and a few months turned into a year. By the very end of 2022 I also decided to participate in Dry January for the first time. I really enjoyed it and didn’t really crave a drink during that time. Well with one exception. One Saturday that January I made Sourdough Pizza and I really wanted a glass of wine. It was really about the pairing, that synergy between pizza and the perfect wine companion. But I forged ahead and found that others had a lot more energy about the fact that I wasn’t drinking for a month than I did. That was interesting to me, still is.

I genuinely thought I’d emerge from Dry January ready to jump back into to writing about wine. I kept telling myself, and others who asked, that I was going to, very soon. But it didn’t happen. Another year passed and I once again participated in Dry January. This time it had a bigger effect on me. While I still don’t think I was ever drinking “too much,” whatever that is, I was sometimes drinking unconsciously. I liken it to sitting at home bored and snacking as a result, simply as a thing to do. Somehow Dry January 2024 provided an interesting reset for me. I found that now I was only drinking quite intentionally. And yes, I like to drink, but sometimes I don’t want to.

By February of 2024 I found myself, in some ways, in the same place I was in 2007, I needed to write more. The question this time was whether it would be about wine. If you know me, I’m nothing if not an overthinker, so I contemplated and ruminated. As this was going on, like a side process running in the back of my brain, I was asked by Jenny Mollen if I’d write a guest wine column for her Substack. It seemed like a small commitment, and I knew it would be an easy enough one-off, so I gladly accepted. I was curious how it would feel, I sincerely had no idea. So, for the first time in over two years, I popped some corks with intent. I took notes and picked a couple of wines to write about. Then I sat down to write about them, and, well it felt normal. So much more so than I could have ever visualized, no matter how much I over analyzed it prior.

So here I am, June 2024. Am I back at this? Well, it seems I am, albeit at a different pace than before. I’ve agreed to write a monthly guest column for Jenny’s Substack. In addition to that I’ve launched this Substack. At least for now, these are the places I see most of my new content landing. If you’ve gotten this far, wow, thank you for reading

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