I have been thinking thinking thinking thinking about wine and drinking and writing and drinking.  And then I had some more wine and did some more thinking.

See, Quaffle is something of a fringe child of the spoonfully.com domain. I like writing about wine, but I suspect I am not a wine writer. I think of wine writers as the kind of people who can write about tannins, tastes and blends persuasively and with the balance that comes from education and experience.  A wine reviewer strives to give you the same experience they had with their sampling, and to do so successfully requires fairly specific skills and a specific vocabulary.

I am not a wine writer.  When I kicked off Quaffle, I thought it would be an excellent place to practice writing about wine: after all, I love writing and I love wine, and it seemed like a natural pairing. I saw myself practicing my wine reviews and gradually becoming one of these clever critters who can share their experiences with flair and delicacy.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about what I like about blogging, and about what it is I like about spoonfully.com as a whole.  It’s taken me a bit of time, but the voice that I’ve been growing on this website is getting stronger and louder, and more, well, mine. And I’m realising that this means I am not a wine writer in the way I had thought I would try to be — and nor do I want to be.  Writing about the blend and the tannins gets repetitive after a while, and I’m moving away from that, so I’ve been avoiding writing about wine altogether.  I do love to write about food and cooking, and I do love wine and drinking, and I think these are all the same celebration of pleasure — but is it necessary to have a whole separate blog dedicated to the matter? Why not incorporate this passion into the main blog, The Cutlery Drawer, where I write about the rest of my life?

So, I’ve got a couple of choices: do I keep Quaffle up and alive as a place to periodically write about wine and drinking in general, sharing experiences and thoughts in a broader context and moving away from the role of reviews? Or do I walk Quaffle behind the barn, give it an apple and some gentle words, and then kindly unload both barrels behind its ears while it’s distracted with chomping and dribbling juice?  My inclination is towards the latter, I’m surprised to say, but I want to give it some thought.

So, with one thing and another going on in my life lately, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my relationship with wine.  I love wine.  Absolutely love it.  Beer is refreshing, Guinness lovely, spirits fun, cocktails wicked: but wine standas alone.  It is my nectar, my tonic, my beloved.  Take a fun, relaxing meal, and add a glass of good wine and the colours deepen, the scents heighten, and happiness reigns. When I’m not drinking wine (when I’m the designated driver, for example), I find myself compulsively reaching for the wineglass that isn’t there.

But I am learning there are disadvantages to drinking, which I desperately want to close my eyes to: I want, so badly, for there to be no disadvantage or negative association with drinking wine, because I love it so. Finally, I’ve had to look myself in the face and admit a troubling fact.  Wine makes it hard for me to sleep. Going to sleep is easy, but I inevitably wake up in the middle of the night, alert as anything, and then have to try and wrestle myself back to sleep.  My understanding is that it’s sort of like whiplash insomnia: once the depressive effect of alcohol begins to wear off, the body finds itself overstimulated and wakes up — it’s as though the body has been stimulating itself (stop that sniggering) in order to counteract the depressive effect of alcohol, and then the depressive effect wears off and the stimulating effect takes a while to catch on.  This is purely my hunch, and, as you have probaby worked out, I’m no biologist — look it up yourself if you’re serious.  Anyway, this theory has been confirmed through a series of alcohol-free days, alcohol-indulgent days and corresponding sleep responses. There’s no way around it: if I drink a few glasses of wine, or drink too close to bedtime, I sleep badly.  This bothers me enormously, probably more than it really needs to.  I would far prefer that my love for wine only had beneficial effects.

But like any good relationship, eventually you have to acknowledge that your beloved may have some slight imperfections, and it is a sign of maturity (I tell myself) that you can face those imperfections and accept them.  And I think the sleeping thing is the kind of disadvantage I can work around.  A limit of only two glasses per evening, regular wine-free days (oh, the longing!) and no drinks after 8pm will certainly go a long way in allowing wine and I to continue our happy and long relationship as we grow.  Aw, isn’t that lovely?  I feel all warm and shirazzy inside.