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.