I’ve been having a bit of analysis paralysis as I launch this newsletter. Being my first post on this platform, the irrational part of my brain is saying it needs to be a flawless debut. My most authentic writing requires vulnerability and this has held me back from sharing for well over a decade. Recently, I’ve been acknowledging my hindrance and putting energy toward resisting it to find my voice again. With that, here’s your Sunday newsletter… a couple hours late.
The harvest season is coming to a close and I can’t help but feel reflective during this time. The past 3 years of my life have been committed to making babies instead of wine, but the same rhythm and energy I’ve experienced working in production is aroused by raising my babies. Comparing bringing children into the world and producing wine from the vine is the most natural and logical analogy for me after committing most of my adult life to studying wine. Truthfully, I could draw a near infinite number of similarities between the two that both attract and repel me simultaneously, so here is a non exhaustive list off the top of my head:
Physically exhausting
Deeply meaningful
Honors tradition while inviting innovation
Constant cleaning (truthfully this only repels me)
Regular tracking and measurement taking
Long days, short seasons
Everything shapes the end product
That last one is the single thing I consider most in parenting. Extreme reverence is required to raise a good kid, but you can’t overthink it. In the cellar there are a whole cast of threats to the wine that could render it flawed, so appropriate preventative measures are employed. Protecting my children can feel like the weight of the world on my shoulders and the truth is that there is no end to that responsibility, just waning amounts of control. At some point, just as a winemaker sends their wine out to market, I will have to send these children, who I have grown from seed, bear my name, and mirror my soul, out into the world. Instead of letting that stress me out, I have a refrain I play back in my head that goes something like, “I will fuck it up, but it will be ok”. Work the cap, keep the fermentation busy or else the bad bacteria could take hold, stabilize and send it out to the world, and mostly hope for the best. That’s basically my parenting style in a nutshell.
Wine has provided a valuable context to examine the human experience and has given me hope for the future in learning about its history. I am not the type of parent who waited until I felt “ready” to have kids (I guess that’s how I ended up with 2 well before my 27th birthday). For me the natural call to parenthood was enough to give me the confidence (or delusion) to know I would rise to the occasion. It’s like a grape vine sanguinely bursting open new buds to mark the beginning of the growing season, trusting that the world will provide what they need.
From a vine’s initial budburst to the harvesting of the grapes is roughly the same amount of time as a human pregnancy from conception to birth. Vines draw nutrients, carbon dioxide, and water through their roots to grow, while a fetus is connected to its mother the same way by its umbilical cord. The bank of nutrients that each of these draw from are the soil and placenta, respectively, two overlooked and understudied pieces of the lifegiving equation. The industrialization and clinicalization of farming and birth are responsible for the oversight, as they place the focus on positive outcomes but neglect to look at the process toward that end; one crammed with bandaid-like interventions.
I’m only a few sittings into Jamie Goode’s newest book The New Viticulture: The Science of Growing Grapes for Wine and the message is clear: there is only one truly sustainable (environment & cost) way forward and that is regenerative viticulture. Goode describes this methodology as an additional 4th category joining conventional, sustainable, and organic/biodynamic practices. “The goal of regenerative farming is to use a toolkit of approaches to improve soil life, to get the soil working again and reduce the need for inputs. In some ways, the term regenerative is not needed: we could call it simply good farming”. By prioritizing soil health, microbial life is able to flourish, increasing organic material, locking in carbon, and reducing the vineyard’s carbon footprint. Increasing biodiversity, reducing chemical inputs, fostering soil vitality, and minimizing the carbon footprint are very tangible changes that if implemented on the large scale could help save the world for our children, and theirs, and so on.
A few months post introduction to the world of wine through working in fine dining, I asked my mentor if he had any books about viticulture and he sort of looked at me like I had a tail. His expression said, “why would I have books about viticulture, I’m a sommelier” while his mouth just said, “no”. From the beginning, it didn’t make sense to me to read about wine if I didn’t understand how it was made. As evidenced by my mentors reaction, there is a vast disconnect in education, most critically for wine professionals, about the process of growing grapes for wine and what implications its industrialization has for our environment. Rampant greenwashing has quickly deteriorated trust in labels like USDA organic and any iteration of sustainable, especially among buyers and consumers in the zillenial age group like me. The wine industry at large continues to shovel out carefully crafted marketing campaigns over authentic products and then cries about how “the younger generation isn’t drinking”. I fight back a massive side eye because it’s obvious they aren’t listening.
My generation is known for breaking the cycle, and this normally refers to cycles of trauma passed down through families. For the earth’s sake, in the microcosm that is the world of wine, I hope the cycle we can break is the chemical farming of our vines and subsequent decimation of soil health nationwide. In turn we will bring the world closer to healthier food, better wine, and a more prosperous future. I want to create this cycle of love, respect, and regeneration in my family and let that be what I pass down.
This spiraled a bit out of control and it’s way past my bedtime. There are a few points I didn’t have time to fully develop, so put a pin in that and we will resume next sunday. See you then. Don’t forget to leave your commentary below!
Such a captivating read! Can’t wait for next Sunday!
Great first newsletter, love it! It's so hard for me to get started writing anything as well, thinking it needs to be perfect first.