Jeremy Parzen, DoBianchi.com

Job Title:  Scribbler in Chief, DoBianchi.com
Location:   Houston, Texas

My Background:
I’ve been in the wine business for 26 years. I received my Ph.D. in Italian in 1997. After I realized that Medieval Italian poetry didn't pay very well, I began writing about Italian wine in NYC.

What are the top three challenges to maintaining your well-being in your work?
If you would have told 25-year-old me that my job would be traveling all over Italy and the U.S. to taste and talk about wine with a bunch of super-cool and inspiring people, I would have been thrilled beyond belief. 58-year-old me, not so much.

As much as the physical stress wears on me, I have my running and my eating habits to keep me balanced as much as possible. It's really the loneliness that weighs on me. Whether at the fairs, on a death march, or doing seminar tours, you're always "peopling," as a colleague recently described it to me. Your adrenaline is constantly pumping, there is so much stimulus, there is so much input... and then, it's over and you're in an Uber on the way to the airport where you'll drink an anonymous beer seated at an anodyne bar between two disinterested and equally lonely people whose name you'll probably never know... And all the while, the song rings true: "I guess that's why they call it the blues... Time on my hands could be time spent with you." I just miss my family so much and the time zone and distance makes me feel out of sync with them.

One of the things that I've found helpful: I always make a point of reading the local paper and listening to the local public radio station, just to feel somehow connected with the community beyond wine and work. When I'm Italy, I try to take time — even 20 minutes — to visit a cultural or natural site. 

What are 3 things you do (or try to do) to maintain your well-being?
1. Obsessive running is what keeps me in shape and keeps me sane.
I try to run a minimum  of three miles every day, ideally four or five, wherever I am. It helps with jetlag, with overall health (so important now that I'm a father of a 13 and 11 year old, who is himself in his late 50s), but more than anything, it is what helps me balance my mood and mind. It's my meditation. Unplugged and observing the world around me (when I can run outside). Of course, some of the runs I've done in Italy have also been massively inspiring, especially along the coast in Abruzzo and along rivers like the Po and the Tiber. That's one of the coolest things about Italy: nature is always readily accessible.

2. One of the things that has really helped with the physical stress of traveling has been micro-fasting.
I generally don't eat dinner the night before a big trip and I avoid eating in the airport or on the plane. Metabolism takes up SO MUCH energy. As hard as it can be to sit on a plane without eating, the payoff is more energy and attenuated jetlag. Also, on days when I'm out at the fair or on a death march, I only eat breakfast and a very light dinner. Again, it does wonders for the fatigue (although the Italians get mad sometimes when I don't eat! I feel so bad about that). 

3. Right now my current paperbacks are "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" by ZZ Packer and "Una donna" by Sibilla Aleramo.
I got hooked on Packer after hearing one of her stories read on the New York Fiction podcast. Aleramo is one of those writers I should have read more diligently when I was in grad school and couldn't see past medieval poetry and critical theory! When jetlagged and unable to sleep, these days I turn to philosopher Simone Weil, whose writing I find extremely compelling... but she always puts me to sleep (no offense, Simone!). Not because it's boring but because it provokes deep thinking in me.

I also try every week to find some "total relax" time. That's when I bust out the guitars and my recording rig and write and record my songs. I "put out" a record every year on BandCamp. I wish I could take a guitar on the road with me. It would do wonders for my mental health. It's my locus amoenus [pleasant place].

What other beverages do you drink when you're not drinking alcohol?
Tea and lemon juice, lots of lemon juice cut with cold water, ideally sparkling.

What would people be surprised to know about you?
My indy rock band Nous Non Plus had a hit song in Slovenia.
A lot of folks may not know that I used to work as a professional musician. During my student years in Italy, I made a decent living for a 20-something leading an English-language cover band. I played in bands in LA for years and had some local success. But it was when I moved to NYC that my music career really started to take shape. I was the guitar player and one of the song writers for the French-language indy rock band Nous Non Plus where I performed under the nom de plume (ha!) Cal d'Hommage (as in quel dommage).

We toured the U.S. and France regularly and had great followings in NYC, SF, and LA. We also sold songs to movies and TV. That helped to propel our visibility thanks to media like "Girls," "Gossip Girls," "Real World," blah blah blah. We sold a song to an HP commercial, which really put us on the map. And thanks to a cell phone ad, we became true rock stars in Slovenia. Yes, you read that right. Slovenia. They brought us over and everything. Playing Ljubljana was a highlight. We once also opened for Ringo and Norah Jones at the Bottomline in lower Manhattan (man, what a night that was!). My wife Tracie will tell you that one of my greatest joys in life is getting my royalty check and BMI statement every quarter. It's not a lot. But it means the world to me that my music is out there and that people are enjoying it. 

What are you looking forward to?
I'm always looking forward to when I can get back to my family. That's where I feel whole. That's where I heal.

What's your weirdest wellness hack?
Reading dense, obscure philosophical texts when I can't sleep because of jet lag. Works every time.

What inspires you on your journey in the beverage industry?
How the wine industry can embrace all gradations of humanity. For all of our shortcomings, our community has a healthy tolerance for being different.

What is a quote that you love?
naturam expelles furca (tamen usque recurret); you can chase nature away with a pitch fork, but it will always come back. ~ Horace, Epistles, Book I, epistle X, line 24.
Horace intended it to mean that you can't change your own, personal nature. But today, it seems to have a much broader significance. In the end, nature always wins.

You can connect with Jeremy on Instagram @DoBianchi and online at https://dobianchi.com/