(Credit: Classical Wisdom)
At the same time, rates of anxiety and depression have soared, doubling or tripling depending on the age group. Some call it the drinking less feeling worse paradox—less wine, but heavier hearts.
I am not suggesting that pouring a glass will fix what ails us. But something has shifted. Life is more curated, more self-monitored, more optimized than ever before. We track our steps, our sleep, our calorie intake. Our watches even tell us when to breathe.
Metrics and measurements may have prevented a few things, but they have also standardized life. In the process, we have lost a little of the unpredictable joy that makes life worth living.
A generation now narrates their life instead of living it. It becomes a performance, and when the curtain falls, reality can hit hard.
Letting loose matters.
It is easy to know what a stranger across the country had for breakfast, but never learn how the neighbor over the fence is doing.
We used to have anchors in our days. Small rituals that brought us face to face with other people. A spontaneous card game. A coffee with a friend. A long dinner where the conversation wandered into unexpected territory. These moments were not curated for social media. They just happened.
Now, too often, the day slips by in a haze of screens. Hours vanish. We are connected to everyone, but anchored to no one. Loneliness has become a modern disease.
Paris in August is a ghost town. Friends are away. I am at home with a newborn, the blinds drawn against the heat, the soft hum of a fan in the background.
But the evenings are different. My partner, my mother-in-law, and I sit down to play cards. No phones. No interruptions. Just the satisfying shuffle of a deck and the kind of conversation that only happens when you are fully present.
We have also been drinking our way across France, one bottle at a time. Bordeaux. Alsace. Now Burgundy. Each trip to the market, we pick a wine. Then we open the map, find the region, read about the grapes. I explain the winemaking techniques, the quirks of the terroir, the traditions of the place.
When we started, my mother-in-law’s wine vocabulary was, “I do not like sweet wines.” Now she says, “I like dry wines, sometimes bold, sometimes light.” She is discovering nuance. She is expanding her spectrum.
The wine is just the medium. The real point is that we are there, together. We are learning, laughing, and adding texture to our evenings.
That is exactly what our wine club is meant to be. Not just a shipment of bottles, but a prompt to gather, to connect, to learn. To make time in a day for something that is real, shared, and present.
Because we source wines with character. Bottles that rarely make it past their own region. They come from out-of-the-way vineyards, grown in soils most people will never walk, made by people who care more about what is in the glass than about chasing scores. The kind of wines that make an evening feel different.
We have wine for your future nights. Think of it as a ready-made collection for your next themed evening with friends. An Italian wine night, a “tour of Argentina,” or even a blind tasting challenge to see who can guess the grape.
So tonight, pull a bottle from the rack. Invite a neighbor, a friend, or family over. Pour a glass. Let the conversation wander. Spend time with kids, toss a ball for the dog, laugh about nothing in particular. See where it takes you.
Because you can track your steps, your sleep, and your water intake, but you cannot track joy.
And joy is the point.
Diego Samper
Wine Explorer
P.S. I would love to hear from you. Write back and tell me what you have been drinking lately, whether it is a favorite from the club or something you discovered on your own.
And while you are at it, let me know what card games or other games you have been playing, or even the books you have been reading. I am always looking for new ideas to bring to the table.
