My Coming Wine Detox

Last night I awoke around 3:00am after dreaming I was sitting in my office talking to a group of folks who were drinking wine and  who were using their cell phones to tweet something about wine. It was disturbing. And it was the best evidence yet that my coming vacation is not only needed, but the choice of a destination like Kauai where wine won’t make an appearance was a very good idea.

I don’t think I’m alone among the wine trade in occasionally needing (desperately) to separate myself from signs of my profession. I wonder if when librarians go on vacations they watch movies and avoid books?

I once knew a fellow wine publicist who took regular vacations to different wine regions and only to wine regions. That would induce wrist-slitting on my part. I wonder if there are any concrete salespeople who visit rock quarries on their vacations?

My day begins by checking wine-related Facebook pages and wine-related twitter feeds I manage. Then it’s on to email, the vast majority of which are emails about wine. Then I move on to blogging about wine. That gets me to about 8am when I read a variety of wine retailed news feeds that tell me what is happening in the wine world. After that I spend time with my wife, who tells me what she will be doing at the winery where she works all day. Then I get to my desk and work on wine related marketing, promotion and business tasks. I talk on the phone all day and it’s rare I don’t use the word wine at least 2 or three times in each conversation. Once the work day is over it’s not unusual for me to drink….wine.

I think of vacations as a detox experience. A detox from the common; from the everyday. And I think this is healthy. When I return from detoxing, I tend to be ready to fill up and toxify my mind again with wine. The fact that I need to detox then retox is likely a tribute to the hold this beverage has on my life.

This isn’t a rant or complaint. I feel like the choice I made years ago to build a career in the wine industry was a brilliant move on my part. I lucked out. But, the critical need to separate one’s self from the object of their regular attention seems to me a health matter. It’s not good to wake up in the middle of the night from a dream about your waking day. You should wake up from dreams that have you swimming in a wide, deep, blue pool.

In 8 years of blogging about wine, I’ve never missed more than 3 days in a row of blogging about wine. In twenty years I’ve never taken off more than 1 week from work. In 25 years I’ve never gone more than a week without wine. One day, I’ll go a month without thinking about wine, writing about wine, working with wine or seeing wine. I suspect I’ll spend that month somewhere secluded with my wife and Louie the Italian Greyhound.

Until then, Kauai will have to do.

I’ll post photos….they won’t have wine in them.

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4 Responses

  1. Lily-Elaine Hawk Wakawaka - November 13, 2012

    I turned to one of my librarian friends for an answer to your question up there about librarians on vacay. She said this in response: when librarians are on vacation “we DO finally get to sit around reading books for pleasure, rather than spending our day building complicated bibliographic databases and answering obscure reference questions! Contrary to popular opinion, I have never met a librarian who spends their work day reading! 🙂 ”

    Have a wonderful trip to Kauai!

  2. Brianne - November 13, 2012

    Definitely understand the need to take time off for yourself! Good for you!

  3. Samantha Dugan - November 13, 2012

    I find that I self impose a detox every few months or so. Haven’t quite figured out if I subconsciously make wine taste less good to me or if my palate and grey matter just hit tilt….and it has gotten more deliberate since I started blogging, but I find myself pulling away from wine for a couple weeks, well other than work of course. Get all refreshed with cool ass beers and cocktails and then, just like magic, one afternoon or evening, bingo…all that passion and excitement comes rushing back. Oh and the term bus man’s holiday didn’t come from nowhere!
    Have a great trip and all my love to you and Kathy!

  4. doug wilder - November 13, 2012

    My last major vacation was three weeks in Costa Rica where except for the spontaneous tasting of some pretty weak Italian wines I feebly led at Iguana Lodge one night, we made regular trips to the little roadside stand on the scooter to pickup beer and rum. We also ate nothing but freshly caught fish and mangoes (never felt healthier, or slept better) 🙂 enjoy!


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