"Why don't you write about wine anymore?" And what 2009 will bring

Dear Readers,

This isn't Strappo writing or Terence behind a screen, doing a bit.  This is me.  This is the same guy who's been writing this blog for over 3 years and who's devoted more time and energy to it than even I can believe.  For most of this time it has been "my toy, my dream, my rest," as John Berryman* wrote.  Mondosapore sustained me through dark times (my own deepest most suicidal depression), enlarged my world and fed my longing for immersion in the world of wine.  It opened my mind and my eyes to a new start in life, an exciting if risky new phase that thrills me every day (almost).

Yet, as you've seen since I wrote a post on wine-blogging blues in the autumn, I have written less about wine than ever.  Posted less often.  Lost interest or perhaps the over-intense attention to the blog and my stats.  The number of visits and page views has been sinking and the numbers are lower than they have been in a very long time.  I don't much care.

Once I would have written more and more in a frenzy.  I would have commented all over the place, haunting other blogs as if I were my own one-man viral marketing department.  I would have, in that way, promoted the brand. 

I discussed this some time ago with Susannah Gold of avvinare. She said, "Sure you're bored.  It happens.  Post less often.  Don't try to do it every day.  Try to keep a 3-post-a-week schedule.  Don't let mondosapore go. It's your brand, your identity.  It's the entry into Domenico Selections!" 

And another recurring comment closer to home (at home, in fact).  Ken asks me, "Why don't you write about wine anymore?  No one cares about all this personal crap." 

They're both right.  But why am I resistant to their sound advice?  Why is it so damned important right now that my life "is a open book," is my brother Steve wrote me?

That last question is one that I don't know I can answer.  Maybe someone else can play shrink and help me sort it out.  I can say, though, that my relationship to and views of wine have undergone a sea change.  It's massive and I feel, frankly, at sea myself.  So join me as I sort of think out loud on this virtual paper.

 

* Great depressive alcoholic suicidal mid-20th Century American poet.  I realize those descriptors are redundant.

 

 

 

I find myself reading many fewer wine blogs these days. Aside from a lack of free time, why is this so? 

- they review too many wines that aren't interesting to me.

- I don't care about reviews much personally.  There's a need and a hunger for them, but their narrow band of language and their high predictability seem very tedious by now. Great for early-stage enthusiasts.

- there's too much aggregation of wine news, too much redundancy of information.

- superficiality (something I've been guilty of in my posts, especially of late).

- ever less interest in who ate and drank what where with whom than the back stories of the winemakers and their successes and failures...not in the context of points or the obsessive fine-point oneupmanship of "connoisseurs" but in terms of the winemakers' [agri]cultural contexts.  As a blogger and reader I'm finding the perspective of aficionados profoundly boring.

- wine social networks contribute even more to this tendency to uniformity, not to mention the establishment of new orthodoxies in appreciation, and I find them stultifying.  That's just me.  No aspersions cast on those who labor to bring these networks into existence and relevance.

Aren't these side issues?  Yes, pretty much. 

The real issues, as usual, lie within.  Number 1 factor: my changed relationship with wine.  I've written about this a few times both here and on Twitter.  It's inevitable as you go from enthusiast to "ITB."  Your viewpoint becomes less gee-whiz and more critical. Less simple.  Not just about whether you like the wine for its grape variety or dislike its oakiness.  It's also about where the wine fits in the market with regard to its taste profile, commercial acceptability (you quickly lose your more idealistic Don Quixote attitudes) and price-quality.  Your estimation of the wine becomes conditioned to the tastes and condition of the market, which, currently, is of course rotten.

There will be some who say, "But a good wine is a good wine.  Whether or not it's 'popular' or appreciated shouldn't matter."  For these people were made scoring systems.  And scores are great if your wine receives a high score and demand for it suddenly zooms up.  Scores, to me, don't mean much except to affirm the observed predilections of the ones giving the score.  I'll love them if they help business.

You see, I asked you to follow along as I thought "out loud," not quite knowing where it would lead.  And -- well, where has it led?

I'm still unsure.  I think this blog will focus more on wine in 2009 -- it needs to be a wine blog, after all, and not a Terry-shooting-his-mouth-off rantfest.  The posts will be less frequent but, I hope, of a higher quality than the rather thin gruel -- or is it sour plonk? -- than I've been serving for a few months now.  Beyond that, I can't say.  I hope we'll discover what together.

Happy New Year a tutti.
 

     

 

 

 

Comments

[vittorio-tirebouchon]

Caro Terry,
quello che hai scritto in questo post di fine anno mi piace, ed è questo il punto mi piace il tuo modo di scrivere, qualsiasi sia l'argomento di cui parli, d'altronde parlare solo di vino sarebbe troppo limitativo per una personalità d'artista come la tua.
Un abbraccio e mille auguri di Buon Anno!

[Strappo]

Eh Vittorio, ti ringrazio dal cuore. Suppongo -- meglio migliori lettori che sacchi di "pattinatori" no?

Buon anno, carissimo. Non dimentichero' mai la serata da Nicola!

[David McDuff]

Buon anno to you, T. I'll look forward to reading in the new year, wherever the road may lead you.

PS: Isn't that an awfully Frost-y photo accompanying the Berryman citation?

[Strappo]

I thought one of a guy jumping off a bridge would be a little bit of a downer.

[Stefano]

There is more to the world than wine. Write about what you think.

BTW-is that Aldo guy still around? You know the one. "Reunite on ice-thatsa nice!" The pudgy guy with the white suit and fedora that had all those good looking chicks on his arms.

[Marco]

Aldo's here
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1025003237&ref=name

[Strappo]

Well, Stevo, there's always inertia...

BTW, that picture of Aldo makes me think it's really an outsourced "Italian" whose native language is Gujarati.

[Stefano]

They outsourced Aldo to Bangalore too? Sheesh! What's next?

[Gabrio Tosti]

Tanti auguri Terry

[Strappo]

T'abbraccio, Gabrio. Tanta felicita' nel 2009. Amor vincit omnia, you know.

[dave]

Terry: Sono d'accordo con V.
It's writers such as you and AC and Alice who give us insights not only into wine ma anche nel cuore.
Buon feste e felice anno nuovo.

[Strappo]

Grazie mille, Dave. Buon Anno.

By the way, apropos of nothing, I've not left the apartment for 2 days and am, at 4:20 pm, still in my robe. This is a REAL holiday.

Of course it doesn't really come close to my favorite New Year's ever -- 4 years ago @ Kapalua on Maui. Ah them was the days!

[Sharon]

Please continue to post whatever stream-of-consciousness idea enlivens you, whether or not it be wine-related. Thanks :-).

[Fredric Koeppel]

hmmmm, many of your complaints about blogs are precisely what I do on biggerthanyourhead. i review many wines from many places made in many styles. i provide background of geography and winemaking to educate readers (im not interested in personalities), and I write about cooking and food and wine matching. no wonder you don't comment anymore.

[Strappo]

Sigh. Oh Freddele, it isn't you. It's ME...

Really, your professional, well-written and thorough approach is a reproach to bloggers who try to do what you do but can't because they haven't the skill, the experience or the authorial voice you possess.

Do you not agree, Benito?