Good Grape Goes on Hiatus

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” said a very wise John Lennon and that’s exactly what has happened with me.  My life has kept apace, even as I’ve made plans to be a respected wine writer.

By most standards, 2011 has been a very good year.  I was a three-time finalist in the Wine Blog Awards, earning notice in the Best Overall Wine Blog, Best Industry Blog and Best Writing categories.  I started contributing a wine column to Forbes.com.  This site was named the 2nd most influential blog (and most influential wine blog) out of 4,000 blogs in a 2011 Wine, Beer and Spirits study by eCairn, a software company specializing in community and influencer marketing.  I was a panelist at Vino2011 in New York City, I won a scholarship to the Wine Writer’s Symposium in Napa Valley, and I turned down enough worldwide wine trip offers to fill a two-month calendar.

Yet, wine writing has exacted a toll.  I approach anything I do with a zeal and fervor that ensures me the success that I want and I’ve treated my wine writing as a full-time second job, to go alongside the job that I already have that requires 50 + hours a week.

Balance isn’t something that I’ve ever been very good at—possessed of an unassuming mien, a Midwestern work ethic, and a mental make-up whereby I cast myself as the underdog means that I am continually trying to prove something to myself, often times at the expense of real, true priorities.

Even more challenging is the fact that my standards for myself have been raised even as I’ve honed my writing chops.  Instead of figuring out a system to find time shortcuts, the amount of time it takes for me to write has become more deliberate and expansive while my interest in writing has become more professional in nature – less blogging and more credible journalism requiring more work to exceed the bar that I’ve set for myself.

The net result of this, after full-time job plus wine writing, is the rest of my life has received scant attention for nearly seven years and I’ve created a nearly untenable situation for myself, a set of internal expectations that I can’t live up to, requiring a time commitment that I can’t manage.

However, most importantly, the expectations and time commitments that I have assigned to my wine writing isn’t fair to the other people in my life – notably, my incredibly supportive wife, Lindsay.  She has been a saint the past six years, my blogging encompassing nearly the entire duration of our 6.5 year marriage.  But, she is long overdue a vested husband and partner, something that I haven’t been good at for a long, long time.

I’ll be around the Internets – commenting on wine blogs, doing the Twitter thing, staying connected on Facebook and I’ll probably start engaging more actively on CellarTracker and on the WineBerserkers message board, but I’m taking a hiatus from wine writing to recalibrate and re-prioritize how I spend my time, shifting my time to the things that are the most important to me:  The only woman I’ve ever loved and the family I want to have with her.

Jeff

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/good_grape_goes_on_hiatus/

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Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won?t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week?s selection, the 2009 Zenato Valpolicella Superiore from the Veneto region of Italy. Our [...]

A Wine for Tonight: 2009 Zenato Valpolicella Superiore was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/american-sommelier-association-6-day-training-in-napa-valley/

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Rex Pickett’s “Life on Spec” originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Outside here in Minnesota it’s in the mid 20′s Fahrenheit with a thick snowpack. It is far from springtime here but a bit of spring can be had here inside a bottle of dry rosé. Every spring and summer I resolve to drink more rosé but for one reason or another rarely do. So I [...]

Mas Des Dames, Rose, Coteaux Du Languedoc 2009 originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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