My story. Wine and me. Me and wine. Part One.
The before we start
What if I told you that I don’t like selling wine, that I never did.
I have always secretly disliked the transactional side of the industry. As in you need to buy, I need to sell. Moving wines from “A” to “B”, like another grocery product, a simple exchange of cash. I never related to that part. Other aspects have attracted me more from day one. The stories, the people, nature, the life cycle of the vines. The parallels with our human lives. All aspects I consider more emotional, more visceral, more profound.
I discovered wine at an early age to later ignore it.
It made me feel proud of my origins at one time but soon frustrated me.
It provided means for continuous learning, growing and exploring the world.
It excited me, surprised me, kept me on my toes thirsty of new knowledge.
It saved me from feeling like a foreigner. It gave me a family.
I gained financial stability selling it but it disillusioned me.
It killed my trust in people and brought it back again.
My life experiences have been intertwined with wine in many ways, but I had never thought of untangling the facts until now when my new wine adventure forces me to dig deeper inside. Money is not enough. Not every month. It pains me beyond doubt. I wonder if I will ever be able to contribute to my family again. I wonder for how long I can hold the tryout. Perhaps, other ways of providing? I will need to find out.
There is no guarantee that going backwards will provide meaningful insights, but I have nothing to lose. During these days that we are forced to stay at home, you may as well open some windows to look for something that might have been locked, hidden inside.
It is uncomfortable and it feels terribly silly to write about me, my past, but today I am a solo-preneur, one-man band. And it will remain this way for a good while. Inevitably my truth is the truth of my business and my brand. I really want to find sustainability. This venture is not a hobby, it never was. I have little intention of adding my name to the failure statistics for startups, but I keep on wondering, will there ever be a market for naked people out there, vulnerable, insecure at times, stripped of everything but who we are?
There is no ambition to my words beyond listening to myself as I write, hoping something revealing comes up. Listening with no judgement, perhaps the most difficult task since I have been historically bad at. I am dictatorial I’ve been told, perhaps the no-listening has something to do with that.
Enough of blabbing, let's start to write.
We have been together for so long, wine and me, me and wine, that I do not know for sure why, how or when it all began.