CAUGHT CONTEMPLATING

Over the weekend, at one of our in-store tastings, I had a regular customer pose a question I hadn't really given a lot of thought to, with regards to my career in the wine business. It's one of those questions you never want to think about because you don't have any idea where those thoughts might lead you.

The question was: "Do you ever get sick of wine?"

The simple answer, unfortunately, would be yes, because when you deal with something on a day-to-day basis, you will naturally become a bit bored by it, no matter how hard you deny it. Yet in thinking, really thinking about it, I found it hard to come to the simple conclusion for a number of reasons.

It really got me thinking about something my father told me a long time ago. He always told me not to concentrate on one thing because you'll eventually burn out from that one thing, no matter how much you love it. I thought he was crazy because at the time, I had discovered music and wanted nothing more than to be the next David Lee Roth.

Inevitably, he was right, because after years of actually singing for rock bands, and living and breathing rock 'n' roll everyday as if nothing else existed or mattered, I was burned out completely.

These days, I juggle my wine job, writing, my wife, my cats, and all the crazy nuances of Life that we all deal with, making it almost impossible to focus on one thing. And while there are days where I'd skip drinking a glass of wine or a beer at home after work, I haven't tired one bit about my passion for the grape. I still want to know all there is to know about wine, yet I am not obsessed about it. There's more to Life than wine - wine should enhance Life, not be a substitute for it.

Everyone gets tired, and they need to take a break from things, recharge their batteries, get a fresh perspective. It happens to all of us. So answering a simple yes is really too simplistic. I will always be passionate about wine and the wine business, but often, Life comes first.