This summer I was delighted to run into a kindred colleague and friend who had moved to Bend, Oregon a couple of years ago and was back in wine country to attend the final year of IPNC (International Pinot Noir Celebration). We got to chatting and he immediately expressed his surprise to see me because he had heard that I was no longer in the wine business and that I had moved to Europe with my family.

It’s funny how rumors get started!

I had to explain that last year I went on sabbatical, studied herbalism, regenerative gardening, and regenerative business, and, coming from that place of new learnings and discoveries, I had decided to change the course of my business. To that end, I had released a soft announcement of my plan to retire from the winemaking aspect of my wine business. It didn’t pencil out for me to retain my preferred business model of keeping my business micro-sized with a focus on handcrafted, tiny lots of high-end, collectible wines. I could no longer afford to make that wine. The winemaking business does not work without access to extensive capital unless you scale, scale, scale. But you still need a lot of capital to scale. And once you scale, you’re making a different product. It’s nearly impossible to maintain a micro-sized winemaking business in Oregon without guaranteed capital outside of your sales to cover operations, including travel needs and a proper sales and marketing budget. That said, I retained an excellent library collection of my age-loving Cabernet Franc based wines. I decided to shift my business to make the bare minimum each year in order to maintain my winery license, and then focus on re-releasing my highly collectible Cabernet Franc library wines. So, yes, I am still very much in the wine business. I’m just not diving deeper into catastrophic debt or building another future case-stacked grocery store brand.

As for moving? My husband and I often discuss buying property elsewhere for a more flexible living situation, with most of our family living on the east coast. We have looked at property on Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, as well as agricultural properties outside of the historic small towns of Middleburg and Washington in Virginia. Because my husband’s work is remote, we have the luxury to move around a bit and discussed spending extended time in Denmark, where my extended family lives, in the Minervois in the south of France where my husband’s aunt owns a home, and in Italy, specifically in the Campania, where both our maternal families are situated. But as of now, we have no plans to move and we are busy at home working in our gardens, mapping out home projects, and keeping our five year old engaged in all kinds of adventure.

I’m not surprised about the rumors, and while they’re not harmful in the sense of defamation, they reinforce my longtime struggles with certain aspects of the wine business. The rumors were started by local wine industry professionals. The person on the receiving end was a serious wine buyer who no longer supported my brand because he was told my wines were no longer available and, apparently, I was long gone living as an ex-pat like Hemingway or Gertude Stein. In an already difficult economy with a trend of declining wine sales, this rumor cost me business.

It’s been an interesting journey to find myself in a space like Taylor Swift’s “Anti-hero”, because that’s really what it’s felt like since I began my Cabernet Franc business. I have unintentionally distanced myself from my local industry by not making a single drop of Pinot Noir. And, to be honest, this has had some negative repercussions. I have always stated I know where my “bread” comes from – meaning, I worked for pioneering wineries out here for over a decade before starting my own venture and I have always expressed my gratitude for those experiences and for the people who have paved the way. Not making Pinot Noir was in no way meant as an act of treason.

I have also been outspoken and very honest – transparent – about my thoughts about various principles or trends in my industry – take, for example, the early and rather dogmatic sweep of natural winemaking and it’s initial path to discredit non-natural winemaking practices. I sought to clap back and explain you can actually make better wine by not taking the “natural” route – meaning, prioritizing the effects of vintage and site variations and making the best decisions based on those two parameters were more important than adhering to one theoretical practice. This is important because, depending on what’s going on in the vineyard and vintage, you need to be adaptable to make the best wine possible. Period.

I also revealed many of the problematic outcomes of irresponsible takes on natural winemaking, principally by exposing the difference between highly educated and trained winemakers using more “natural” approaches in their winemaking protocols versus inexperienced winemakers (who may have worked just a couple of harvests) who do not know how to properly manage fermentations and other winemaking protocols, thus, hiding faults via a “natural winemaking” cover up. And, let me clarify, that’s not to say these inexperienced folk can’t manage a fermentation, it means they are unlikely to know if a fermentation has turned, or if spoilage microorganisms like Pediococcus bacteria have taken over, and they certainly do not know how to remedy these problems and will take these wild experiments to bottle with a wild soup of byproducts including things like biogenic amines named histamine, tyramine, putrescine, and cadaverine. And just to emphasize the frequency of these kinds of spoilage byproducts, you are more likely to open a faulted bottle of wine with putrescine and cadaverine at the highest concentrations. For funsies, go on and figure out what putrescine and cadaverine smell like (go ahead and break down the etymology to the root words).  So, when you pour that into your glass, swirl and smell puke and dead bodies just know that’s not terroir.

And then, of course, there’s the lack of certification for natural winemaking and there’s no governing body overseeing standardization. Ask one winemaker what natural winemaking is and the answer can be completely different than another winemaker’s interpretation. It’s unclear what “natural” wine means on a wine label because it can be used as a marketing term and not as a guaranteed process. There are no guarantees that what’s in the bottle is natural at all. It’s complicated. And, therefore, it feels meaningless to me. On the other hand, I appreciate and respect wineries that go at length to certify their wines organic and biodynamic! The certifications mean something – they are guarantees.

Being honest and seeking the truth does not always pave the way towards friendship and allies! It is often the opposite and can produce adversaries who do not like it when you are seeking truth or when you rock their boat. Communities are often built on shared values and not necessarily on standing on the side of truth. It’s easier and more comfortable to be agreeable and part of a community than to disagree and be a truth seeker. Being a truth seeker does not mean you are always right. It just means you have a curious nature and wish to seek the truth – seek being the operative word here.

Another way I continue to distance myself from my industry is via the outcries against a presumed prohibitionist, anti-alcohol movement. This is a side that can never win. It’s the most short-term- thinking problem in the wine industry.

The pandemic and subsequent inflation have both hit wineries hard. Our local alcohol control commission keeps increasing taxes and fees to the point that it’s clear they do not understand nor care about the heavy financial burdens that are already placed on wineries. It hits the smaller businesses significantly harder! In my opinion, the state of Oregon does not want its wine industry to be successful – despite the capital, tourism and job creation it brings to the state. That’s just bad politics and government. But that’s a different story than the one about anti-alcohol prohibitionists that are being called out for educating people about the harmful effects of alcohol. The wine community is feeling blow after blow, but that does not mean every single blow is wrong.

I’m not interested in participating in the short-term response of calling out these medical advisories. Here’s why. They’re not wrong.

I have a degree in holistic nutrition and I am certified in herbalism – both disciplines teach extensively about the digestive system, the effects of toxins ingested in the body, with both short-term and long-term problems from toxicity. What alcohol businesses don’t seem to understand is the fact that humans are bio-individuals, which means, in respect to understanding their consumer base, no two people process alcohol in the same way. You cannot say that wine is healthy for all or that the French paradox applies to everyone. You cannot say wine is good for the heart, because for many, many people it is absolutely not good for the heart. There are numerous biological events that can render drinking alcohol more dangerous for some, including one’s overall health, life stage (like menopause), and health conditions like autoimmune disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, along with many other chronic illnesses. Understanding alcohol consumption is complex because our consumers are all over the map. So it doesn’t serve to make blanket statements like: alcohol is bad for human consumption, or alcohol is good for the heart, or the resveratrol in red wine makes it anti-inflammatory and good for the heart.

Here’s an example of a blanket statement about wine being healthy that fails to tell the whole story. While resveratrol is considered anti-inflammatory and even has anti-tumor properties, it can also lead to hypersensitivity and alteration of human cytokine, blood, and liver parameters. So, some people who may choose red wine as their daily supplement for resveratrol could have hypersensitivity and potential serious adverse effects. Not everyone. But some people. Red wine can be okay for some and not okay for others.

Ultimately, it’s the consumer’s responsibility to be well-informed and to make decisions about alcohol consumption based on personal health history and wellbeing. But, the truth is alcohol is a toxic substance and it is highly inflammatory, and all the resveratrol in the darkest of red grape skins will not counter the predominant harmful effects of alcohol toxicity. Promoting it as anything different is irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

It makes zero sense to try to argue that!

There are better long-term thinking solutions to this complex issue. And I am distancing myself from the short-term thinking that is attached to the old ideas about wine being “good for you” or “good for your heart” and calling in any random M.D. to proclaim it a health drink. There are medical doctors out there who would sell their souls for Ozempic, Lipitor, or Oxycodone. Big Pharma would not be the financial success story it is today without the support of certain doctors.

Just nope.

Instead, I’m agreeing with the scientific evidence around the toxicity and highly inflammatory chemistries of alcohol. I also speak from experience that it has been dangerously inflammatory for me in this stage of my life with autoimmune disease and, specifically, after having Covid-19 and long Covid symptoms. This disease is still very new and the medical community is only just beginning to learn about the long-term effects. I think the pandemic awakened many people to more consciousness around their health choices. And, personally, I believe that is a GOOD thing!

I will never proclaim wine to be a “healthy” lifestyle choice when it isn’t. It’s just a lifestyle choice.

Instead, I am taking a different approach. I am promoting wine as a special beverage that should be consumed in hyper-moderation and not as part of a daily routine. I am encouraging imbibing that is never about elevating your toxic load, getting drunk, or polishing off bottles, but, that’s about savoring something elevated, beautiful, rare, and of cultural significance. I’m inviting my customers to ignore all the nervous, frenetic rhetoric and claims around suggested “anti-alcohol lobbyists who continue to fuel Neo-Prohibitionist sentiments.” Ignore that noise.

Instead, follow your truth, follow your instincts, and do what serves you and your overall health and well-being. If a glass of wine at dinner eases your mind and helps you to feel your best, you know that better than anyone else. At the same time, if a glass of wine at dinner causes you to have disturbed sleep, night sweats, swollen and bloated intestines, headaches, or heart palpitations, you also know that better than anyone else. Don’t let anything – fear mongering or marketing b.s. – influence what you already know to be true for you. Simply know what’s true for you!

That, my friends, is taking a long-term approach to the issue around alcohol and it’s role in our health. It’s supporting the customer to do what he or she knows as what’s best and, at the same time, it’s not supporting harmful, outdated, old ways of thinking about wine. Evolution means change. Change means growth. Growth means achieving what’s good for the all and everything.

As part of adopting a TRUE regenerative mindset and practice, I will put people and the planet over my business’s profit.

That’s hard for some people to wrap their brain around because it’s spelling out something that seems pretty basic to understand and yet it’s so contradictory to what one might learn in say… business school.

So, this rumored ex-pat deserter still runs in an “anti-hero” lane of truth seeking.

I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. When I turned forty, ten years ago, I stopped concerning myself with that. I’m not here to please anyone. I’m here to be my authentic self, to practice what I preach, to be transparent, to be honest, and most importantly to care and concern myself with the greater good of all and everything. Sometimes doing the right thing might hurt your business, initially. But it’s in living in our truth that our gains are greater than superficial things like profit. I understand that by taking this stance I put my ability to earn a living at greater risk. But, that’s short-term thinking, too. I believe when we support the greater good of all and everything, truthfully, the people who come to trust you and appreciate your honesty, even if it means initially hurting your bottom line, they will show up for you.

So long as they know you’re still in business!