In A Toast Before I Leave, Diego Samper writes mid-journey, reflecting on how travel and wine share the same language of pause and ritual.
A Report From Wine Explorer Diego Samper
This week’s note catches me mid-journey, somewhere between Paris and Bogotá.
Now travel feels transactional—swipe, scan, board, land. People drift through terminals in pajamas. I understand comfort, but comfort belongs at home.
Still, I like airports. They remain one of the last honest arenas we have. Nobody’s armed, everyone’s waiting, and conversations end gracefully with a boarding call. For a few hours, the world resets.
Before I board, I stop for a drink. Not to escape, just to mark the moment. A glass of wine or a martini, a small act of surrender. It’s when I hand over all responsibility. I’m not a pilot or a doctor. I’m simply a passenger.
Getting to that drink is its own ritual: emptying pockets, removing belts, separating laptops, measuring liquids. Every airport has its choreography. It’s another world entirely. I’ve learned to make the best of it. I visit them often and no longer rush through.
At airports I keep it to one glass, two if the flight is short. The longer the trip, the less I drink. Dehydration is cruel; a dry mouth at 35,000 feet feels like penance for another life.
From my recent travels, I can say Air France is one of the few still trying. Their wine list feels chosen by a person, not an algorithm. It’s thoughtful, and that’s rare these days.
Duty-free doesn’t tempt me anymore. The deals aren’t deals. You forget something, feel guilty, and end up paying twice as much to fix it. But somewhere near the gate there’s always that small bar, a quiet corner where people still stop before takeoff.
That’s my favorite part. The conversations. Two travelers comparing itineraries, or a stranger who just needs to talk before disappearing into the sky.
In there, people talk about places, not about people, and that makes a big difference when you think about it. It’s a story, not a judgment. A description, not an argument. Finding common ground in motion.
Maybe that’s what we’ve lost—the pause before things begin. These days we rush through everything: the headlines, the scroll, the next notification. We’ve over-optimized life, trimmed out the pauses that gave it texture.
Maybe faster isn’t better. Maybe we’re rushing past the only moments that still have meaning.
In the air we’re suspended for a while, weightless, reminded that control is an illusion. A small shake, a little fear, and we all feel human again. Maybe we need that. Sometimes a drink helps.
Wine can hold that space. It slows us down. It reminds us to taste, to talk, to breathe.
Our upcoming Fall Spanish Collection reminds me of that spirit. Spain, after all, has mastered the art of the pause. In some towns the siesta and two-hour lunch aren’t indulgence—they’re sanity. And if you’re not a member yet, there’s still time to join and receive it.
A small act of slowing down in a world that keeps speeding up.
Diego Samper
Wine Explorer
P.S. If you’d rather slow things down from home, your wines are already waiting for you here.