I could have titled this post arnoldwaldstein.com/wine redux?
Truth be told I’ve been overtly lackadaisical about my relationship to the natural wine world.
Vacillating for awhile on whether it is time re-up my game, put in the time and start to blog again, a passion of mine for almost 10 years straight.
Blogging–and the push into my community project theLocalSip–was a critical piece of who I was back then.
Not an avocation but assuredly a defining part of myself. A visceral connection to a community I grew up with. A bond over an ethical approach to taste, agriculture, the food chain, health and wellness, and the environment alongside my work in tech and community building.
Or simply—on a perfect day, we would all like believe that we are what we believe in beyond the crush of life –and this was one way of making that partially true.
Natural and artisanal wine is at its core a social experiment, not just an agricultural one. That is what captured my imagination from day one and made it all a bit meta and magical.
It is also by definition an impossible economic endeavor. If you define a product as being hand-made, in this case hand-harvested, it by nature unscalable as a business in today’s world.
Yet hundreds of people make this their life. They are buying high, selling low and completely content with it.
That innate wonder and friction wrapped in goodwill and back breaking work in the face of a digital world is what draws me in. It happens in spite of this all.
The truth is that today, more and higher quality wine is being made in this fashion than ever before. A renaissance of sorts without a platformed community or a core social center.
Yet micro blogging brings more ennui than story, more image than thought to this world and I think a disservice to the nuances that make it so special.
I find that with all above being true, there is still a huge gap in the content being produced and the growing captivation with this mushrooming social and agricultural experiment. And personally, I am more enthused when I write about it then when I read what is written. This is the face of the true fact that I have many friends who are outstanding journalists who write with great passion and knowledge in the field.
So—
I’m making this public announcement to myself to start to explore again how to tell some of these stories.
I’ve decided to start slow and on a weekly or biweekly process, pick people making wine that captivates me that I can add my voice to. I’m content defining myself as a blogger with a community rather than a journalist or wine writer, which I’m most certainly not.
The first post will be an interview with Aaron and Cara Mockrish of Frenchtown Farms.
A truly charming and brilliant couple making wine uniquely their own way. They are possibly one of the first of the second generation of NA natural winemakers learning their craft as apprentices to none other than our friend Gideon Beinstock at Clos Saron.
I have some asks for my community.
First is that I am interested in referrals to people that I should interview and blog about. I have a list but it will be better if it grows with your input.
Second is a polemic I’m having with myself about the positioning of—whatever I end up–calling this.
Historically www.arnoldwaldstein.com/wine is my place for wine.
I’m toying around with either moving the wine blog (or whatever it becomes) to reify theLocalSip brand with all of its online properties. Or potentially to unearth the DowntownWineGuy moniker that I’ve sat on for a long time. That is in effect who I am.
Or leave as is. If you have thoughts on this, I’m all ears.
So—thanks for listening to this overindulgent note to myself.
Share what you care to and hope you will join me as I again stumble forward into the passion of mine.
