Wine & Mindfulness

Can the practice of present-moment awareness while savoring wine increase mindfulness, reduce overconsumption, and help foster a healthier wine culture?

I write to you in gratitude on the first Sunday of the new year with nearly double the audience that I had at the beginning of December. When I sent my first newsletter out into the world 2 months ago, I had an earnest hope to connect with the wine community in a more meaningful way after feeling discouraged with the endless flood of boastful bottle shots on instagram, influencer disinformation, and the reincarnation of a new good ol’ boys club in wine bars everywhere. Thankfully, in 2 short months I’ve found a community of writers and readers who are engaging daily in constructive conversations on a wide range of wine related topics. Check my recommendations if you’re interested in expanding your reading list this year. Also leave your thoughts in the comments when you’re finished reading, I want this to be conversational.

Never much of a resolutionist, I set a goal at the end of 2022 to read more and I am proud to say I read more books in 2023 than I had in a very long time. In high school, one of my many composition teachers drilled into my head that in order to be a good writer I needed to be a good reader. I know that my dedication to reading this year has helped me develop my writing, something I plan to focus on much more in 2024. After a wee break over the holidays, I will be reinstating my Sunday & Wednesday posting schedule.

With the ringing in of the new year, I have been contemplating the intersection of wine with mindfulness. The concept of mindfulness is something I first stumbled upon in my post college dropout haze of confusion and anxiety, and has been something I have practiced to varying degrees of success ever since.

The ability to be fully aware and present in a given moment in time has become more challenging with every year that passes as technology continues to find more ways to keep us in perpetual connection with things happening outside of our immediate physical realm. I’m feeding my baby her first bite of overcooked sweet potato and then chirp! I’m notified that planes collided in Japan. Every notification is a threat to our peace and joy in the present moment, though it isn’t always easy or possible to simply disconnect.

What does this have to do with wine? Well, in that aforementioned haze of confused young adulthood, I moved to Detroit and started working in a restaurant. Here, I was introduced to wine packaged in bottle instead of the box and bag I was well acquainted with from frat parties galore. Our manager was tireless in his efforts to educate us about the mystery and importance of good wine as an integral part of any good meal. We tasted every day at pre shift and as I learned the methodical techniques required to deeply analyze a wine, I found some of the peace I had lost growing up. That moment when my eyes closed and my nose approached the glass became my version of meditation. For 5 minutes every day my mind quieted and I was able to focus completely on one thing: the wine in my glass.

Mindfulness can be understood as the non-judgmental acceptance and investigation of present experience, including body sensations, internal mental states, thoughts, emotions, impulses and memories, in order to reduce suffering or distress and to increase well-being.¹ A precedent of non-judgment is required in order to accurately analyze a wine. The world’s most skilled tasters are able to define a wine’s age, varietal, geographic origin and much more with their senses of smell and sight. Removing one’s own biases and judgements when tasting analytically is key so that a taster’s likes or dislikes don’t blur the bigger picture. So why shouldn’t we extend ourselves the same sort of grace? Sitting with ourselves and observing our thoughts, stressors, aches and pains without getting caught up in guilt or disdain can be beneficial to our overall well being. I don’t like to drink Alsatian Gewurztraminer, but I can appreciate the soil, climate, grape genetics, and cultural significance that makes this wine what it is. Similar to how I don’t like how often I feel overwhelmed in everyday life, but by recognizing I am in a demanding phase of life- raising very young children, working full time, and managing postpartum hormones with a full time breastfeeding schedule- I don’t get caught up in the mom guilt and can better address the path toward a solution.

Dozens of studies have reported that present-moment awareness as a general disposition is associated with a host of psychological benefits, such as reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms, lowered perceived stress, increased mood and improved well-being.² Like any habit, practice is essential and I’ve found that with mindfulness it doesn’t need to be traditional meditation in a dim room with wind chimes and a gong resonating. Though I semi-regularly practice yoga for mind-body connection, oftentimes the routine that brings me the most joy and is the most accessible is savoring a glass of wine with dinner. As cooking commences and whatever alliums I have begin to soften in the pan, their aromas waft through the house as I open a bottle of wine, having a little toast with my husband. I raise the glass toward me to take a whiff and am reminded of the wide world of sights and smells, people and far away places beyond my day to day. It renews perspective through which to reanalyze my daily stressors, often realizing nothing is that big of a deal in the grand scheme.³

There has been an exhaustive amount of conversation around drinking culture in relation to the “younger generations” in industry circles. One of the first things I read when I joined Substack was Joe Fattorini’s article titled, The wine drinker is not a "consumer". She's your mum. This is a riff on a quote by the Father of Advertising, David Oglivy, “The customer is not a moron. She's your wife”. I had never heard this before and now I think about it daily. As professionals working in the wine space, there is a duty to shift our sometimes jaded perspective on the common “wine drinker” (no you won’t catch me calling them consumers anymore). Treating wine drinkers who aren’t “professionals” like morons does a disservice to the industry as a whole and undercuts long term viability. Wine is mystical by nature and I don’t necessarily think it needs to be demystified see here. Instead the magic should be shared, because who doesn’t need a little magic in their life? Though our media cycle won’t let you believe it, most humans want peace, love, health, and connection. No one wants to feel stupid and most humans I know tend to default to insecurity in new, mysterious situations. Treating wine drinkers with humanity may prove to be a more successful tactic to begin connecting with them more authentically than, I don’t know, assuming the worst based on personal pretense and bias.

So many of the conversations about millennials and gen z are had by elders who seem to have a particular distaste for the habits of those their junior. Everyday I talk to someone who wants to dramatize what another person is drinking. *Throws hands up in air* “Natural wine!” “High Noon!” “Lambrusco!!!! Mocktails??!!! ”. The continuance of these elder decision makers’ resistance to new habits, new regions, and new drinkers has and will continue to hurt the industry of wine but also wine drinkers who won’t readily have access to the options they want.

It is well documented that people under 40 spend more money and feel more happiness from experiential purchases than material ones. ⁴ At risk of sounding overly romantic or idealistic, the idea that savoring a glass of wine could have potentially positive effects on my mental and physical well being seems like a worthwhile expenditure of my self care budget. This may explain why I can’t stop booking trips to destinations known for their food and wine. It makes me feel happy, connected, and at peace with my place in the world. For people who are chasing happiness through meaningful experiences in the universe of fine food and drink, how does this translate to their (your?) daily drinking routine? I’m asking because I genuinly don’t know outside of my own experience. Let me know what you think in the comments & have a fantastic start to your week.

p.s. If you want to learn more about where the idea that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health” originated and what that means for you, a wine enjoying person, I highly recommend listening to the most recent episode of The Four Top: Wine It Does a Body Good with Katherine Cole & Martin Reyes, MW.

xo Caroline

1. Kabat-Zinn J (2013). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York: Bantam Dell. ISBN 978-0345539724.

2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656616301118

3. I feel the need to add the disclaimer that in no way am I promoting a lifestyle of alcohol dependency and if you feel like you are unable to make it through the day without a drink, you are not alone & please seek help. The phenomenon I write of has quite little to do with the fact that wine is an alcoholic product, and much more to do with its identity as a complex agricultural product of timeless cultural significance.

4. https://news.utexas.edu/2020/03/09/spending-on-experiences-versus-possessions-advances-more-immediate-happiness/