Here We Go Again: 3 Suggestions for Re-Entry into Wine's Event and Travel Season

These past few weeks, events and conferences have picked up again in the wine industry, to an extent and at a pace not seen since pre-COVID.

From the WISA (Wine Industry Suppliers Association) conference in Bendigo, Australia in early October, to the New York Wine Experience a few weeks ago, to wine2wine in Verona early next week, to the Wine Industry Financial Symposium a few weeks from now in Napa — travel and IRL social interaction have resumed.

It is refreshing, and strange.

Part of me feels like I’m blinking my eyes open again after a nap on the sofa. It takes a moment to orient, but the furniture is familiar. I’m refreshed, and bring a renewed mindset to the task at hand.

Another part of me, though, that is re-entering wine events and travel knows that I am not the same person I was two or three years ago. That shifts things, when the motions are familiar (“conference,” “tasting,” “presentation,” “lunch with winemaker,” etc) but the operator is different.

Is that happening to you too?

Here are three ways I’m seeing this play out, as we re-enter the reality of wine events and travel this season.

Moving Slower
These are busy days. “Moving slower” seems in some ways like a pipe dream. AS IF I could move slower… you think. But moving slower is not the same as moving deliberately. Deliberate movements, even as we progress through a packed schedule, tend to stretch the spaces and moments in between. When you walk, just walk, deliberately. When we ask a question, let it be just that question and nothing else. When we taste, let that be the only taste in the world just then. Each of these things slow time. Deliberately.

Saying No, Thank You
It has somehow become easier and more sensible to decline politely — invitations, projects, requests, demands. Boundaries are more definite and less permeable, which results in less crowded mental space. No, thank you to one thing means more time for a Yes, please to something more desirable.

More Decisive Responses
Clarity. It’s one resource that has grown more abundant for me since COVID. Clarity of purpose even more so than clarity of thought, which I rather keep fluid and flexible. The destination may be fixed (that’s the clarity) even while the path there is negotiable.

Each of these three observations adds up to what is, for me, the most apparent difference within the familiar event/travel experience this year: saying (out loud) what we need and what we want. No, I don’t really want to have that drink with you. Yes, I’d like to meet for coffee. No, that deadline is unreasonable. Yes, let’s negotiate until we’re both satisfied. No, I can’t accept those payment terms. Yes, I hope that we can work together again soon.

What would you add to this list? What’s different for you about this year’s event/travel experience? Do you also find yourself with more clarity and moving more deliberately? If not, what is happening instead?

I’d love to hear.

Most of all, though, please remember to be kind to yourself, as kind as you would be to anyone else who atypically forgets a name or bungles some detail at an event. The truth is that we are all a little out of practice right now, and nothing that happens will be the end of the world. Please keep things in perspective and go gently, with yourself and others.

Thank you.

Namaste,
Cathy

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