17/01/2025 General News, Latest News
It’s the time of year where we decide to amend our lives as if pulling a handbrake turn on an icy, January road. Partly down to the calendar needing to be replaced, but also partly because it has just been the northern hemisphere’s traditional feasting season (it’s no surprise that feasting occurs just before the temperature really starts to drop, regardless of how we dress it up). Part of the problem is we don’t need to fatten up for winter in the 21st Century, central heating, working indoors and synthetic fibres have all wrought the change from necessity to tradition.
For me, January means one more thing, reading social media posts by others working in the wine trade about dry January. These range from the people who are surprised that after two weeks of not drinking on a daily basis that they feel more spry and chipper in the morning, to the much more ubiquitous commentary that it’s bad for business. It is of course possible for both of these facts to be true, and also for them to be somewhat obvious and hardly worth going over for another 4 weeks (just like last year). However, I would add that January has always been an awful time for business. I remember my time running an Oddbins, our targets for January were about 2% of our annual target. We never saw trade pick up until around February 14th, when people suddenly felt like they had something to live for, or something to drink for, depending on their relationship status at the time.
Of course it’s a time of hope, new year, blank calendar, the idea that some cosmic page has turned and it’s all ready to be writ anew! It’s also the time of year when you realise you spent most of December’s pay cheque on food, drink, gifts and travel, and so the January blues set in on the otherwise delicate pink-blossoms of hope and renewal as your bank balance dips towards the reds. Personally, I have nothing against dry January, hope, renewal or personal betterment. I personally give up drinking throughout lent, partly to prove I can and partly because my Irish Grandmother instilled a deep sense of guilt in me if I don’t observe these things. I also give up caffeine during lent, and I’ll give you some anecdotal knowledge here; caffeine withdrawal is worse than any hangover! I won’t go into detail, but I have had plenty of mornings shouting down the porcelain telephone to God, and week two of no caffeine makes those feel like a pleasant catch up compared to the two-day typhoid style withdrawal that is no tea or coffee. If you doubt me, give it up for two weeks and see how you feel about it.
Now these musings of abstinence and enjoyment aren’t for nought. There is a marked view that we need to observe our physical health as a focus for improvement come a new year, and, again, I approve of things like dry January to help improve yourself and general health. However one’s mental well-being is often over-looked at this time, or it’s considered something that will naturally improve if we can just run 5 kilometres in under 30 minutes. I would never argue that wine is a health-food. The articles that occasionally scattershot the internet about resveratrol and its presence in wine and health benefits are the latest re-dressing of the old stories you got in the newspapers (back when print media was a thing) about how a glass a day was good for you, or an Italian village of borderline alcoholic pastry-makers had the longest life spans in Europe. We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again, but fundamentally suspending healthy particles in a solution that is 13% alcohol isn’t really good for you, and dressing it up to appear to be is disingenuous. At the end of the day we walk a tightrope of eating, drinking and breathing things that are as good for us as possible, while still having to live in a world of high-fructose corn syrup, micro-plastics and CO2 emissions. I’ve no doubt that in the future the tide will turn on the coffee culture too, and the positive articles about alertness and heart health will be replaced by new research about the long-term effects of constant caffeine consumption – because nothing that hurts so much to give up can be doing much good for you really!
As we enter the new year we should all remember that while wine isn’t going to help you pass a maths test, and isn’t the optimal source of hydration, wine does have an element that can aid self-improvement. It can make you happy! Whether, like me, you enjoy a glass of cold white wine after the kids have gone to bed; a little 20-minute haven of distraction through flavour and subtle intoxication - or if it’s sitting down with a friend on a weekend a cracking open a fancy red. Personally, I think I smile the most about 20-samples into a large-scale wine tasting, however I’ve been told by others that it’s their idea if hell to have to work through an 80-page long booklet of wine samples. Wine will never be a health food, and I’ve read plenty of the studies on the particulates that could help you physically and no, it won’t ever be physically great for you, but it can be a mental-health food. I don’t advocate drinking to excess, and we don’t have the café culture or restraint of some of our brethren from warmer climes, but to have a bottle of something special on occasion (even if that occasion is the 3rd weekend of January), can really help to lift the spirits. A glass and a half of pudding wine with a Dairy Milk can be a wonderful thing. Picking up a case at auction is always one of the best ways to find a well-aged or ready to drink wine. With luck 12 bottles will see you through to your next chance to buy something, if not, by two cases!
Take January off if you need to, it won’t hurt, probably quite the opposite, wait until February the 14th if that’s the next reason to treat yourself (or someone else), but please consider that sometimes the answer to the Blues is a Red, White or Rosé.
Please take care of yourselves, both physically and mentally.
Sam Hellyer
Head of Wine and Spirits
Images via Unsplash