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www.amandaroseleonard.com

With that said, I have the sad task of relaying some bad news. I have fallen out of love with wine. I love it while I’m drinking the good stuff but I haven’t been seeking out new good stuff for a while. My wine fridge was an ebb and flow of new bottles before but now I find that it’s the same stale selection. The same bottles always remain and I never do get more things to put in there.

That’s why I have a plan. I need to love working out and fall in love with wine again. The best way to do both (for me, at least for now) is to offer myself wine as a bit of a reward for hard work. If I hit the gym or go for a run, I will allow myself some high quality wine with dinner as the supreme reward for a job well done.

If I don’t work out? Well, I get nothing. No reward. The idea is that this will help me moderate my wine intake while also making it special again. This also should drive me to run more often in order to get that reward (although running in itself really feels like a reward).

So with that, my work starts. My plan is in motion as of today and I will let you know how it progresses.

Have you ever gone through a phase where your love of wine waned? How did you get over that hump and regain that love?

My arrival in the parking garage was at exactly 5:28pm. The parking garage was central to both the coffee shop and my future obligation. Great. A good half hour to scope out the digs. I walked the 100 yards from my car to the front door of the cafe. Affixed to the glass door was a small index card that simply read “Open Everyday 7am to 6pm.” I arrived at the door, felt welcome upon seeing the small note, and entered.

It was sparsely inhabited. A man sat alone to the left of the entrance with a notebook in front of him. He looked as if he had just come in from outside since he was still wearing his grey stocking hat and bright green sweatshirt. Or maybe he was just sheltering himself from the draft as people entered.

To my right was a small couch with a coffee table in front of it. A man in his thirties had set up there with his coffee, papers strewn about, and he looked to be deep in study. I don’t know for sure but I imagined that maybe he was in law school or even medical school. Of course, when you set up to study in a coffee shop, I always think these people look smart. Is this general perception or just my own, I thought. No matter. He’s a lawyer.

They’re off in their own worlds; no one talked. My entrance went largely unnoticed as I passed by towards the counter.

I asked for a green tea from the curly haired barista with a lip piercing. She offered a green tea latte as an alternative, speaking highly of it as something that’s worth trying if I hadn’t before. Her tone was soft and compassionate so I accepted her offer for the latte version. Skim milk seemed fine, thank you. She prepared my drink in an actual coffee mug. It’s the small details like real mugs that are often overlooked but that I appreciated in that moment. It adds character and substance to the tactile experience of a new place.

I took my green tinted latte to a small table by the large shop window, adjacent to the lawyer. It was 5:40pm by now. Soft music was playing and the barista who had served me my drink was collecting used dishes from the cafe, clanking together glasses and plates to add to the background noise. But no one spoke.

I am habitually early for appointments so I kept an eye on the clock while enjoying my beverage (which was quite good, though I wouldn’t really order it again). Anxiety mounts as the appointment gets closer. I should leave now but it’s rude to be this early. Tempering my urgency, I spied again on my fellow cafe companions. The tightly bundled writer by the door is taking a break from his pen and paper to check his phone, but only briefly before he returns to writing. The lawyer looks stressed. His coffee is gone and his papers haven’t been adjusted since I arrived. Maybe his papers are scattered all around the table because his thoughts are disorganized as well. Or maybe he just prefers the slight chaos when he’s focusing.

And there’s a change. It’s 5:51pm and the soft, nondescript music disappears. A subtle notice that shop is closing soon; a gentle push. I was finished with my latte but was enjoying the rare calm that I felt. Anxiety had washed away as I focused on anything but my appointment. Now I was dreading my inevitable exit from the serene setting I was in.

I brought my mug to the barista by the register, thanking her for the suggestion. A silent nod was what she returned and took the dishes back to be washed. The lawyer got up and did the same shortly after. I settled in for just a couple more minutes of silence before my obligation. And then it happened. The gorgeous symphony of human movement. It was 5:58pm and time for me to pack up and head out but I wasn’t the only one. Everyone sensed the urgency of the impending closing time at the shop. With no words spoken, the writer and the lawyer started packing up as soon as I did. I paused. I watched them continue to wrap up their experience and exit the front door that I had arrived through thirty minutes earlier.

We shuffled out one after another to leave the shop. No one had to tell us. It was just the feeling in the room and the air changed in those last few minutes. We all knew what needed to happen. We were in tune with the shop, like it had thoughts and told us each telepathically that it was sorry and knew how much we loved it but that it had to close until tomorrow. I understand.

We moved off in our own directions.

Side note: I am trying my hand at more descriptive and creative writing. Critiques are welcome. I admit I’m a bit rusty at this.

But at the tail end of the fifty pound transformation, I begin thinking about more. I’d changed what people see and I look pulled together but am I? The more I talked about my caterpillar to butterfly adventure, I realized that I was far from done. Only the surface of what lay ahead had been conquered (quite literally). My appearance matched how I envisioned myself but now I needed to get to the bottom of my mind and dust off what had lay neglected for many years.

In years past, I neglected to care for my body (which resulted in weight gain) and had also neglected to care for my mind. As it usually is, college was a great period of exploration into the writing craft and also into my brain. I vented through words and I figured out my thoughts and feelings in a way that I could understand. I wrote about painful experiences over and over because the first, second, third drafts never seemed to say what I intended. I worked with the same ideas and learned to express myself in new ways, all the while improving gradually along the way.

But when college ended, that work also ended. When my assignments and forced writing was no longer there, my self writing vanished as well. I went years without thoughtfully expressing my inner self. Because I was happily in a relationship, I figured that it was okay not to write. Getting out the pain and anguish was all I had known before so if I was happy, then there was nothing that needed to be done!

And how dreadfully wrong that was. Since August of this past year I’ve been rediscovering my deepest caverns of thought and experiencing highs and lows as I dust off something hidden away for years; never fully expressed. As difficult as it has been to remember past wounds and look upon old scars, it has also been extremely therapeutic. Everyone has baggage and demons. However small each one is individually, they accumulate to such grand significance that it’s impossible to bear their weight.

One by one, I’m taking them down and dealing with them. I’m righting myself to a point of even-keeled buoyancy. When there is a smaller stack of burden to carry, the newer burdens don’t seem so bad. When there is less of the past to handle, the future seems brighter.

So when I say that I’m an introvert, this is what I mean. Of course I didn’t define what an introvert is, but this is what an introvert does. Catalogue and think. Adventure within thought and analyze. Thoroughly look at something, discover meaning and impact, and stash it away for reference later.

Having said that I’m an introvert has made me realize that a lot of people don’t really know what it means. Truthfully, I didn’t know what it meant until these last six months. It’s not that I’m shy (I’m not). It’s that I gain energy from being alone and thinking about all of this rather than going and talking to everyone at a party. It’s also not really uncommon to be this way. It’s not weird. It’s quite eye opening for me as I’m finally able to define how I function and how I feel in a way that isn’t weird or strange or a little bit crazy.

It’s none of those. It’s just me. And maybe you. It’s okay (and even perfect) if this is how life is for you.

Image from this lifehack.org post about introverts. If you’re curious to learn more, it’s a short and quick introduction.

• - I lost 50 pounds.
• - I got a promotion at work.
• - I’m working on connecting with my inner me.

2011 was an eventful and overwhelming year for me in many ways. The weight loss is truly front and center in that. I went from 200 pounds to 150 pounds in a year and a half. Last I wrote about it, I wasn’t close to my goal but I hit it after working at it every day. If 50 pounds wasn’t impressive in itself, how about losing 25% of my starting weight? That’s pretty life changing if you ask me (after all, I did that and my life is different now).

I had to adjust my wine intake. There was no way around it. Then the job promotion came and my weight loss slowed as my stress increased. It became harder to keep up my strict diet but somehow I shimmied down a bit more anyway. But I was stressed and not drinking as much so I had to get out my thoughts and emotions. I started writing more, but not here or about wine. I wrote in a personal journal that I still write in very regularly.

I realized that if I don’t write here, I have to write somewhere. I was also able, for the first time in my life, to put a name to this unending desire to write. I’m an introvert. I spend time living in my head and concocting theories, arranging stories, and thinking about life. A large part of how I keep myself sane is through writing. Being prepared with this knowledge, that I’m not just some crazy person, is helping me to be more me in every situation.

Deep inside of my soul lives a writer who lives to tell stories. When the stories stop being written, that part of me starts to wither (and you could argue that its not just a part of me but the whole me). I’ve always been that way. I know that even if I’m not the best writer who ever lived, I’m still a writer and writing keeps me sane/whole/”normal.”

It’s unfortunate, but not all of the stories that I want to tell are wine related and belong here. I’m sorry for neglecting you, but while I was neglecting you, I was trying to nourish myself. I’d do it again if I had it to do over.

I’m a healthy weight for the first time in nearly 7 years. I feel more emotionally balanced than I have since some time in college. I am able to clearly define why I’ve always felt “off.” These are huge wins. My art has continued to grow, if only within the confines of my pen and paper.

But then, my 3 year old blog still lingers here. Dusty and neglected. If only I had wine stories for every day so I could fill this up and overflow with amazing imagery and emotion. I don’t right now but maybe I will. Or maybe the journey here is less about wine and more about this woman that I am. The Wineing Woman. Who is she? Maybe, regardless of beverage choice, she is my outward persona who allows me to present my thoughts through an accepted medium. Maybe as I grow and change through the years, so does she and she writes about things unconnected to wine but she still is The Wineing Woman.

Or maybe not. I don’t really know.

So with my third year of blogging, let’s at least resolve that even if I can’t blog often, I will blog meaningfully. And that’s what matters most.

Of course, this was a personal mission and part of my gift (or blessing, if you prefer) that I could bestow on my friends. I felt compelled. I can only imagine that this is the same type of feeling that religious leaders get when they say that they got their calling. I knew my calling. It was to booze up some newlyweds with some (seriously legit) champagne. It’s probably less romantic to have gotten my calling from my inner wino than some type of God, but that’s not the point here (unless wino is my religion, in which case this was wholly the same thing).

I was called and I needed to do this. Knowing that the others who partook may not appreciate the gesture as much as I felt its importance didn’t matter somehow. All I was required to do was pour full glasses to Mr. and Mrs. Champagne, offer them the best sentimental gift that I know how, and hope they were happy.

The wedding commenced and everything was ready. My carefully chosen bottle was safely nestled inside of our limo, just waiting for its shining moment. The couple had theirs, and now it was showtime. We piled into the limo and I readied my offering. Camille Saves Brut Rose. The same wine I drank with Tom to celebrate our engagement. The same wine we toasted when we won the Stanley Cup. The same wine that I intend to toast upon my own marriage. The same wine, sharing here, now, with them.

I popped, poured, and settled in to watch their faces. Ashley, knowing how much this meant to me, profusely thanked me for my gift and we all sipped. It’s amazing how quickly a bottle of wine so special and prized can disappear when eight bridesmaids along with a bride and groom are enjoying it. It seemed like mere seconds, though I know it must have been longer. The wine was gone, my duty was done, and I felt fulfilled.

And then came the complimentary bottles of sparkling wine provided by the limo rental company. Andre. We went from Camille Saves to Andre. Now, if you’re not familiar, let me give you a little background here. Camille Saves retails for about $50 while Andre is about $5. Price doesn’t always equate to quality but here, oh dear, here it does.

After the beauty of my special bottle, we endured sugary sweet sap, that can somehow be considered in the same category of the former. The crowd loved it, which crushed my inner wino ever so slightly. But I had to savor that I introduced these people to something completely sentimental and while they may not have felt the gravity, I sure did.

I perched my half-filled glass of Andre back where it had been stored before our wine adventures began and resigned to savor the mission that I had completed.

I thought about this for a good long time and having accomplished my calling, I was proud. Sharing good wine (especially sentimental wine) is part of how a wino loves. I hope they felt that.

I hate being any sort of booze elitist, because who really likes guys like that? I had held my tongue when a bottle of Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante was referred to as champagne. A bachelorette party limo where talk of how drunk we’ll get tonight is hardly the platform to educate some lovely ladies on the difference between our bottle of bubbly and methode champenoise.

Try as I might, small sip after small sip of The Rough Rider started making me queasy. Sugary drinks are hardly my thing these days and as much as I could force my palate to approve the beverage, my stomach went into full out protest. I just heard it telling me that drinking this much sugar is going to trigger an upchuck way before it triggers any alcohol buzz. It wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping appearances and joining in on the novelty drink fun.

As I paid attention to my tastes and body during a conversation about how it would cost $500 if anyone puked in the limo so we should get drunk, but not too drunk, a $6.00 glass of CK Mondavi Pinot Grigio seemed all the more appealing. Maybe it’s not the best wine I’ve ever let touch my tongue but in that moment, the respite from sugar coma was incredible. There was acid, not accompanied by too much sugar, and I could relax and enjoy the moment again. Drunk but not puking? I can do this. As I downed my wine, all was settling in.

It’s hard to get comfortable in certain situations sometimes, as I was finding that night at my good friend’s bachelorette party. You may not have noticed, but I’m not the girly-est of girls around. But somehow, getting the right drink eased me into the night and opened me up to allow myself to have a good time.

A shot and a gin and tonic later (continuing my theme of lower sugar drinks), we hit the dance floor and let loose.

Spoiler: It’s not about doomsday in Charlottesville.

There’s all sorts of recaps for WBC floating around. Some good, some bad, some funny. This one is more personal (put on your group hug shoes and let’s get ready to do this).

Big events like WBC tend to evoke big emotion from yours truly. Last year, I was so overwhelmed with the amazing experience that I had that I still have a draft of what I wrote directly after the conference ended that I’ve chosen not to publish.

This year, I’d say my emotion was just as big, but the emotion was different. I’d had a fantastic time, drank great wines, visited super awesome places (Monticello, anyone?) and best of all, hung out with some of the coolest people I know. I feel lucky enough to call a number of the attendees friends and to have even shared a hotel party or two with one of our keynotes, Eric Asimov (who’s pretty badass because he’s so down to Earth).

But back to the emotion. I was left feeling unsure about the future of this blog. Why? Let’s get into that.

My life in 2011 has focused less on wine and more on losing weight and building a solid foundation with my fiancé for our life ahead (no, we haven’t set a date for our wedding and I don’t want to make any of this post about that, honestly). I was thinking about how I don’t post as much as I used to and even worse, I don’t follow through with posts that I have ideas for. Sometimes, it just feels like I’ve lost the motivation to keep up with this old thing (I started this guy in January of 2009 so in the land of blogging, that actually is pretty old).

And then I thought about it some more. So what if my focus in life is changing? That just means that maybe the focus here should change, too. After all, if you go back to my very first few posts (please don’t), I wrote a few wine reviews, and that’s something that I find extremely boring and unhelpful now. I stopped writing them after something like the 4th one, which shows how quickly I adjusted my writing and content a couple years ago when I was unfulfilled.

I started my blog back then with the ultimate goal of gaining employment in the wine biz, and that happened less than 9 months after starting to chase my goal. What did I do then? I refocused this thing to be a more personal account of my own life within wine. That’s worked for nearly two years but maybe it’s time to readjust again.

I’m not sure exactly what this means for me (or for the blog), but it does mean that I’m not closing shop, even though I’d thought about it quite seriously. It might mean that while I get my act together, there won’t be many posts. In the end, I hope that there’s a positive result to be found and that I can continue trying my best to deliver the best stories that I can tell.

In the end (which really might only be the beginning if you think about it), I’m sticking around and everything is pretty much unicorns and rainbows. I love writing and I love writing about wine.

Look at how Millennial I am, posting a Lisa Frank image. My generation is so unique that no one could possibly think that they understand us. (I really did have this stationary set, fyi.)

Since January, my life has been so different than the months before that. Now, two glasses of wine on a Wednesday night is something rarely even attempted, let alone commonplace. Going out to eat is a bit more tedious because I actually care about the nutritional value of what I take in. Making my own food has taken a higher priority. When we do go out, I more often order a salad instead of a sauce-covered piece of meat between bread. It might not have been want I wanted before, it’s what I want now. I’ve actually found myself craving salads in a way that I’d only ever craved chocolate before. A deep, aching cry from deep within the fibers of my being just screams “I need vegetables!”

It’s good.

This doesn’t mean that I haven’t found a balance between my life of wine consumption and calorie limitation, though. I still enjoy some pretty good wines. I’m just doing it a little less often and when I do indulge, I’m having fewer glasses. I’m a little more selective and I’m not finding that to be a terribly bad thing. The lack of hangovers also isn’t a bad perk (of course with the exception of my Stanley Cup celebration). My mornings are better for it.

It’s not like I never splurge, either. In May, I traveled to Niagara, CAN for a wonderful iteration of TasteCamp North, and totally forgot for a few days what counting calories was like. Granted, all of the food was amazingly local and fresh, so I wasn’t all that concerned with terrible gross additives or anything like that, but it was refreshing. I came back and was surprised that I hadn’t even gained anything back from some of those over-indulgences.

After all this babbling you probably want a numbers update, huh? Sure, sure. I’ll cave. In my last update I’d lost 25 pounds. I’m quite happy to report that as of this morning, that number is up to 38 pounds lost, meaning that I’m a mere 12 pounds from reaching my major goal of losing 50 pounds.

At this point, I’m pretty sure that I’ll take my weight loss further than that 50 pounds, but it’s going to be an amazing goal to reach before the end of 2011 (that’s really my only goal for a time table here). Having made all of this progress, I have no doubts that I’ll get there and when I do, I’m going to look back on 2011 as one hell of a transformation year.

While I’ve been a little absent from this blog and from the wine scene, it’s not been a waste. Wine will always be a massive passion for me to enjoy and nerd out about. One day (hopefully soon) I’ll be able to fully dive back into this in the way that I once did. Until then, I’ll see you at the Wine Bloggers’ Conference next week!

The boys with some Veuve Clicquot and the Cup.

They also took that a step further a couple days later and ordered a Midas sized bottle of Ace of Spades. Yeah, that’s 40 normal sized bottles all in one. And they drank it straight from the bottle. I was going to judge them for it but I can’t. They get to have a little fun (They also got 20 bottles of Moet Imperial that night so someone in the organization knows a little about bubbles.)

If this bottle doesn't look massive to you, take into consideration that the Bruins captain, Zdeno Chara, is 6' 9" tall and drinking from the bottle.

To top all of that off, the (now retired) vertan of the team, Mark Recchi, spoke earlier this year to Robert Taylor of Wine Spectator about his off ice wine hobby. In that interview, Recchi said: “I have a 1970 Pétrus. [...] I’m saving that Pétrus for something special; I want to win another Stanley Cup.” Well, he’s done that. Does he plan on drinking some of that wine out of the Cup? Has he already savored the 41 year old bottle of Bordeaux? I wish I knew. I’d love to speak with the man about wine some day.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking. The Bruins have been drinking some pretty decent stuff since last Wednesday when they first hoisted the Cup and Boston has been winning kind of a lot in the last decade. How does the Bruins celebratory wine stack up to that of the other major sports?

Lucky for you, I have the answers!

Red Sox This is a big one. I expected a lot out of their bubbly, to be honest. An 86 year draught aught to entitle players to something awesome, right? Well, maybe; maybe not. In 2004, they popped Mount Pleasant Brut, a $23 bottle from… Missouri? Yeah, I’ve never heard of it. I don’t know what it tastes like and I’m not sure it’s worthy of breaking the curse, but them’s the facts.

Then, in 2007, they popped another domestic sparkler, one that you might be a little more familiar with: Domain Ste. Michelle Brut (about $10 retail). It’s pretty solid for the money (I had it a few years ago at this point so I’m pulling from memory here) but I’m not sure it speaks “World Series Wine” to me.

Celtics Believe it or not, their 2008 celebration contained very few bottles of bubbles. It took some serious searching to figure out what the bubbles were, but I got it. They drank some Moet Imperial (though the locker room was more filled with Bud Light cans than anything else).

Patriots Let’s be honest, I hate football. All these guys seem to do is pour really cold buckets of water/gatorade on their coach and then say they’re going to Disney World. I couldn’t find evidence of one popped cork in their locker room (it’s possible that the NFL keeps that footage on lock down and if that’s the case, my next statement holds true). Bummer.

Which team had the best bubbly situation post-championship win? I know I’m biased, but I have to say that the Bruins did with the abundance of solid champagne that they’ve been drinking. The Celtics come solidly in second place here. Moet Imperial is good, but only a few bottles were out there being enjoyed. They couldn’t even spring for Bud Light bottles so I can’t honestly put that above the Bruins. Then, there’s the Red Sox in third. Winning the World Series after EIGHTY SIX years of losing, and you pick a no-name bottle from Missouri? It just doesn’t seem right to me (not that the wine isn’t good, because I don’t know, but it just seems weird).

I hope you enjoyed my little celebration sparkler post today. Hopefully there’s much more to come in the next few weeks. Cheers!

Photo Credits: 1. Boston.com 2. Foxwoods Facebook page. Photo here.