Introduction
How did I come up with the wine pairings mentioned throughout Wine Witch on Fire? Why is wine marketed so differently to men versus women? What can you do to support your mental health in an era where you have to be online?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m being interviewed by Marcy Gordon and Beth Costa on the Wine Road Podcast and Jeff Sammut on Canada Now.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
Join me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Live Video
Join the live-stream video of this conversation on Wednesday at 7 pm eastern on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video or YouTube Live Video.
I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.
I want to hear from you! What’s your opinion of what we’re discussing? What takeaways or tips do you love most from this chat? What questions do you have that we didn’t answer?
Want to know when we go live?
Add this to your calendar:
Highlights
- Could an online pile-on like I experienced in 2012 happen today?
- What can you do to support your mental health in an era where you have to be online?
- Why did I use real people’s names in my memoir?
- How did I come up with the wine pairings mentioned throughout Wine Witch on Fire?
- Why is wine marketed so differently to men versus women?
- How do I manage the different aspects of an online-based career?
- Which Sonoma wineries must you visit on your next trip?
- Which wine pairs best with catharsis?
- What was it like when I realized my husband of 20 years wanted a divorce?
- Looking back, were there signs that I missed?
- How did I communicate with my son about the difficult situation that was my divorce?
- Why did feeling alone lead me to reexamine my whole life?
- Why is it important to me that we have more conversations about overdrinking?
- How did I manage to curb my overdrinking after the year from hell?
- What is it about podcasting that makes it great for connecting with people?
Start The Conversation: Click Below to Share These Wine Tips
About The Wine Road Podcast and Marcy Gordon and Beth Costa
Marcy Gordon and Beth Costa bring a wealth of knowledge and personal experience regarding, food, wine, events, and travel in and around Northern Sonoma County. Dubbed the Click and Clack of Wine—their snappy banter and laugh filled show provides insider tips on wine tasting and advice for listeners planning everything from a day trip to a two week stay in Wine Country.
Marcy Gordon is a freelance wine and travel writer. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Wine Enthusiast, Forbes Travel Guide, Sonoma Discoveries, and The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2017 she was awarded a fellowship to the prestigious Symposium for Professional Wine Writers. Her blog Come for the Wine was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Wine Blogs in 2015.
Beth Costa is the Executive Director of the Wine Road. Beth has been at the helm of Wine Road for the past 17 years. Prior that she managed the tasting rooms for Kendall-Jackson Winery. Beth has lived in Sonoma County for the past 30 years and loves to get out and explore – rivers, redwoods and the ocean are big draws!
About Canada Now and Jeff Sammut
Canada Now shares the stories that matter to Canadians, going beyond the headlines to shine a spotlight on the cities, towns and people that motivate and inspire us each and every day. Host Jeff Sammut goes coast to coast across the country talking to Canadians about Canadians and the stories that affect us all, big and small.
Resources
- Connect with the Wine Road Podcast
- Connect with Canada Now
- Reif Riesling
- Feel Free Sparkling Rosé
- Upcoming Launch Events for Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much
- Virtual Online Wine Tasting – Thursday, November 9th at 7 pm
- Treat yourself and your friends to a live online wine tasting and inspirational conversation between Menna Riley and yours truly about my powerful new memoir. All you need to do to join this private online party is purchase wine from one (or more) of the following top-notch wineries:
- Quails’ Gate Winery, B.C.
- Westcott Vineyards, Ontario
- Benjamin Bridge Winery, Nova Scotia
- Do you live outside of Canada? You can still participate: email me for details at [email protected]
- Diary of a Book Launch: An Insider Peek from Idea to Publication
- Wine Witch on Fire Free Companion Guide for Book Clubs
- My Books:
- Unreserved Wine Talk | Episode 105: Wine and Cheese Pairings to Celebrate the Holidays with Janet Fletcher
- My new class The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner And How To Fix Them Forever
Tag Me on Social
Tag me on social media if you enjoyed the episode:
- @nataliemaclean and @natdecants on Facebook
- @nataliemaclean on Twitter
- @nataliemacleanwine on Instagram
- @nataliemaclean on LinkedIn
- Email Me at [email protected]
Thirsty for more?
- Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
- You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
- The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.
Transcript
Natalie MacLean (00:00):
I think it’s the story of many in our industry because drinking, when you’re in this profession is either viewed as an occupational duty, you’re out at another winemaker dinner or there’s shame in admitting you have a problem. US Department of Health and Statistics show that the hospitality industry, which includes wineries and restaurants, has the highest rate of substance abuse among all professions.
Jeff Sammut (00:22):
Wow. So what did it take for you to curb your drinking and then of course deal with your depression?
Natalie MacLean (00:31):
I had to develop a lot of different techniques. I always say to my online course students, the difference between tasting and drinking is spitting and thinking. That was one aspect of it with lots of therapy and the therapy sessions are in this book. It’s not a self-help book, but a lot of early readers have reported back that the techniques that I used are really helping them.
(00:58):
Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle please and let’s get started.
Welcome to episode 262. How did I come up with the wine pairings that are mentioned throughout Wine Witch on Fire? Why is wine marketed so differently to men versus women? And what can you do to support your mental health in an era where most of us need to be online? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chats with Marcy Gordon and Beth Costa hosts of the Wine Road podcast in Sonoma, as well as Jeff Summit on his podcast Canada Now.
(02:18):
Before we dive into those conversations, I’d like to share a few of my tips for not over drinking during the holidays. T’is the season to tipple, not topple over. These come from an article I wrote for the Kit, which is the glossy lifestyle section of the Toronto Star and its affiliated newspapers like the Hamilton Spectator, St. Catherine’s Standard and Peterborough Examiner. The column will be published in tomorrow’s papers on December 7th. As someone who drinks for a living, I live in what a wine lover would consider paradise. Bottles sit on my desk to the left and right of my computer and fill the gaps in my bookshelves. Hundreds more line. My kitchen counters and 3000 are under my feet in the basement. Cases of wine arrived daily from wineries for 14 years. Easy access to all that alcohol was never a problem until I went through the worst vintage of my life, both personally and professionally.
It started with my husband of 20 years suddenly demanding a divorce. Then an online mob of rivals came from my career. In response to the depression from the divorce and the anxiety from the online mobbing, I started drinking too much. My personal cocktail hour crept up stealthily to 4:00 PM that first glass of wine numb the pain of the arsenic hour, the end of the workday when you’re tired and hungry and want to either take arsenic or administer it to those around you. When I worried about how much I was drinking, I’d have another glass just to calm my anxiety. Wine blanketed my screaming thoughts about the future. When I asked my son a decade later about my drinking, he said he didn’t notice the increase. He’d grown up seeing his mother with the wine glass in hand, a maternal prosthesis. There was no difference to him between my work wine and personal wine, and increasingly that was true for me as well.
I still met magazine deadlines, paid the bills, monitored his homework, attended his school events, but wine wrecked my sleep. I’d wake up with a headache and pulsing regret at 3:00 AM the witching hour wavering between despair and determination. I decided I had to fight for my son, salvage my self-worth, rebuild my career and get a grip on my drinking. I did it with lots of therapy that continues to this day. I wrote about it too in my new memoir Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much. I share stories and tips on how I moderated my intake without going sober and having to walk away from wine and my writing career. It’s a topic we don’t talk about. In my industry, drinking is viewed as an occupational duty and there’s a lot of shame in admitting a problem. Yet government statistics indicate that the hospitality industry, which includes wineries and restaurants, has the highest rate of substance abuse among all professions.
(05:26):
Lately, there’s been lots of discussion about sober curious. On one end of the spectrum and excessive drinking on the other, but not much in between. What if you love wine and don’t want to give it up yet feel you’re drinking a little too much? This is especially true during the holidays when we’re going to parties, hosting dinners and dining out more than we do the rest of the year. So here are my top five tips on how to get into the holiday spirit without letting those spirits haunt you like the ghost of Christmas past.
Number one, deal with underlying issues first. Moderation became easier. After I dealt with the depression and anxiety with a professional therapist, the compulsion to drink to drown those feelings subsided dramatically. The tips here and in my book are not medical advice or a substitute for it. I encourage those who need professional help to get it.
Number two, pause and ask what was the thought right before the thought that said, I need a class of wine? That five second circuit breaker of backing up to the thought that prompted the urge to have a glass of wine made a big difference. I take a deep breath and put my hand on my heart to reconnect with my body so that I could take care of it of me in a different way. If the thought was imbued with stress, frustration, anger, or hurt feelings, could I find a different way to deal with it? Such as having a bath, watching a show, taking a walk. I love the Japanese concept of forest bathing. Get out into whatever nature is closest to you. It’ll change your energy.
Number three, pour half of a full bottle of wine into an empty half bottle to save it for more mindful drinking. This made me more conscious of how much I was consuming and allowed me to fret less about wasting good wine. The half bottle also reduced the wine’s oxygen exposure so it tasted fresh whenever I opened it the next day or later that week. There are also lots of gadgets and sprays that preserve wine when there’s an open bar at holiday gatherings. I’ll start with a refreshing low alcohol white wine like a Canadian or German Riesling or a sparkling wine. My next visit would be for a sparkling water topped off with a lime or a glass of non-alcoholic cider. Some people ask why water is in my glass, often ingest as though I have a professional obligation to drink wine only. I tell them that when I pace myself, I enjoy the wines I do drink even more. The bonus is that I don’t wake up the next day with the little drummer boy playing on my cerebral cortex. I practice more mindful drinking at restaurants and at events. I ask the server to wait on a top-up until I finish my glass. I also drink one glass of water for every glass of wine to stay hydrated.
Number four, drink less but better wine. I needed to get away from the high of alcohol and return to the sensuality of wine to move from the anesthetic to the aesthetic. Now I drink less but better wine. Not only does it taste better, but I’m more aptt to savor its nuances. Slowly, this strategy can work no matter what your budget. For example, instead of buying two bottles of $15 wine, why not treat yourself to a special $30 bottle? The bonus is that pricier wines are often made by family owned wineries, so you’ll also be supporting a small business.
And number five, make low to no alcohol wines part of your repertoire. The category of low and no alcohol wines is exploding in growth, and there are lots of tasty choices that I recommend on my site regularly forget those wretched denatured cooking wines of yore. These wines are well-made often by wineries as part of their portfolio. One of my favourite low alcohol favourites includes Reif Riesling from Niagara with mouthwatering notes of lemon and lime. I also love the aromas and field strawberries in the no alcohol. Feel free sparkling rose from Cox Creek Cellars. Both will ship right to your doorstep.
If you’ve read Wine Witch on Fire or are reading it, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. If you haven’t got your copy yet and would like to support it and this podcast that I do on a volunteer basis, please order it from any online book retailer no matter where you live. Every little bit helps spread the message in this book of hope, justice, and resilience. It also makes for a wonderful stocking stuffer or holiday gift book. I’ll send you beautiful personally signed book plates for every copy that you buy. Just email me at [email protected]. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all the retailers worldwide at nataliemaclean.com/262. Okay on with the show
Marcy Gordon (10:36):
Today, our guest is wine writer Natalie MacLean. She’s written a new book called Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much. Welcome, Natalie.
Natalie MacLean (10:48):
Hello, Marcy and Beth, great to be here with you.
Beth Costa (10:51):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. I’ve been waiting for this episode for, I don’t know, it seems like months now.
Marcy Gordon (10:57):
I’m really excited about the book. I just finished it two days ago. It’s about Natalie’s story of overcoming adversity in all aspects of our life, both personal and professional, and it’s an amazing book. The story builds and builds. I felt like you were just going to burst out of those pages by the time I got to the end. It was just really great. It’s intense. Thank you. And it’s so funny, one of my first questions was I could almost feel the crescendo and the relief by the end of the book. In the book, Natalie talks about a pile on for there was kind of a kerfuffle over a fair use versus copyright and the difference of Canadian and US laws.
Natalie is based in Canada, and it’s hard to be a woman and it’s hard to be a woman on Twitter, and it’s hard to be a woman in wine sometimes. But my question was, do you still think this would happen today? Now that Twitter is somewhat defamed, it’s not as active as it was?
Natalie MacLean (11:51):
Well, I don’t know. Twitter seems to be going whole down a different rabbit hole these days.
Marcy Gordon (11:55):
Yeah, it’s a different problem.
Natalie MacLean (11:56):
But yeah, I think although this took place in 2012 I think we still as women in wine and just women generally are still facing a lot of these issues. Now we have pile ons that are made worse by bots, so you don’t know if it’s a human or a bot that’s egging everybody on. The only difference I see now is that the pile ons or the cancel culture just moves more quickly.
Marcy Gordon (12:21):
Yes.
Natalie MacLean (12:21):
It’s so fast. So they move on. That’s the only relief you get is they find somebody else and they’re on to their next whatever. But I think for myself personally, I’ve learned a lot of coping techniques, both for how to be online about my own drinking habits, a whole lot of things. And when it comes to being online, I think we have to really think about our mental health and not go down those rabbit holes that are not good for us, that are full of negativity or whatever. I mean, you can just block people, but the thing is, of course, if you earn your living online as I do, you can no more turn it off completely than a surgeon can operate outside of a hospital.
Marcy Gordon (12:57):
That’s the problem. It’s a double edged sword.
Natalie MacLean (12:59):
Yeah, absolutely. But to answer your question, I think things are improving, but we’re dealing with different factors today, and people still have to, I think, be very vigilant of, as I say, your mental health online.
Marcy Gordon (13:12):
And you name names in the book and all those names. I didn’t find it surprising those were kind of the usual suspects, but did you need to get their permission to include them in the book, or how did that work?
Natalie MacLean (13:23):
That is fascinating question. Now, I’m a copyright nerd, right? So at first, I changed everybody’s names, most people for the sake of privacy, like my son and ex-husband and so on, which people do in memoir all the time. But when it came to the people online and quoting them as to what they were saying about me or anything else, I realized, and with the help of several lawyers, I couldn’t do that or I’d be violating copyright all over again. I had to use their full names.
Marcy Gordon (13:55):
And there must’ve been some satisfaction in being able to do that.
Beth Costa
I think so, too. I mean, if they said it, they said it, they need to own it.
Natalie MacLean (14:01):
Yeah, they said it. I mean, it’s in print. I’ve got screenshots and all the rest own it. It’s still, there is no issue. But I think too, that in the end it lends the whole thing more authenticity, more transparency, more gravity, because these are real people who are still operating online and have positions of influence.
Marcy Gordon (14:21):
The other thing I love in the book is you highlight a lot of women winemakers in the chapters, and you’re using it as a way to kind of mark a milestone or reflect upon a moment with a particular wine in the memoir. It’s a very effective device that deepens the narrative. How did you work that in, and what was the process of having poignant moment and then you pick a wine? I just thought those wines went so well. How did that work?
Natalie MacLean (14:43):
Oh, thank you. So some of the wines I was actually drinking at the time, others seemed to fit a theme or a mood after the fact. So I would add the story in, especially if the story resonated with my story. I’m sure you both are well aware of the Veuve Clicquot Champaigne, and she was a single mom like me. She had a young child as I did, and she faced a completely different set of career challenges and personal challenges, but I just resonated with her story so strongly that I had to weave her in there. Another woman from Sonoma, Mary Edwards, is in there and her gorgeous Pinot Noirs. So that’s why I was weaving it in. I thought it lent an extra dimension, and I’m glad you picked up on it.
Marcy Gordon (15:28):
I love the Southbrook Vidal skin fermented, the Sperling. That peaked my interest because I’m a big fan of Orange wine. It’s right up your alley, and I think, oh, I read that there’s a charge to create the first appellation for orange wine. That was amazing.
Natalie MacLean (15:45):
Oh, yeah. She’s a real rockstar. Literally. She’s a pioneer. She created the world’s first appellation for orange wines here in Canada and codified kind of some of the wine making. So yeah, I want to celebrate these women, and not in a token kind of way, but a, did you realize just how much of and beyond the scenes with these leaders? I guess the only counter influence that I had to deal with is to make sure that in the memoir it doesn’t come across as, oh, there’s a wine to solve all of your life.
Marcy Gordon (16:18):
Right. That would be good.
Natalie MacLean (16:19):
Pulling back on.
Marcy Gordon (16:20):
No, I…
Natalie MacLean (16:21):
Drinking too much.
Marcy Gordon (16:22):
I think you skillfully weaved it in. One thing I also want to mention, there’s so much humour in this book, it’s really funny, and one of my favourites is you’re talking about, there’s a line of wines after the Handmaid’s Tale. They were actually pulled from the market because they had names like Off Fred, Off Glen, and my favourite quip is you said if they named them after the real women, they’re named June and Emily, they would’ve been called Off Brand. I thought that was just hilarious. Yes,
Natalie MacLean (16:50):
I know how someone could take the concept for these wines and run it through. I can only assume focus groups and market testing or whatever and get it right out to the market labels that if anyone’s read the Margaret Atwood book, Handmaid’s Tales or seen the television series, which is just phenomenal. But it deals with pretty serious of misogyny, but it’s so emblematic of some marketing of wine to women versus how wine is marketed to men. So it was an example that really brought that into contrast.
Marcy Gordon (17:24):
I wonder. Social media can be exhausting. It’s a full-time pursuit. Do you do all your own social media, or do you have a genie like Beth does?
Beth Costa
Yeah, I have a genie.
Natalie MacLean (17:33):
Well, I write it all but I do have someone helping me post.
Marcy Gordon (17:37):
Yes, schedule. Plan it out.
Natalie MacLean (17:39):
Right? Yeah, it does get to be a lot after a while, but I create all my own content. Therefore, whatever I create as a blog post or television clip or my own podcast that is what feeds into social media to create posts.
Marcy Gordon (17:55):
Yeah, exponential promotions and such.
Natalie MacLean (17:57):
Exactly. Recycle, reuse, reduce your own efforts with content.
Marcy Gordon (18:02):
That’s always the plan. So when you come to Sonoma, what are some of your favourite wineries that you like to visit?
Natalie MacLean (18:08):
Well, I’ve mentioned Mary Edwards. I’m a Pinot girl at heart.
Marcy Gordon (18:12):
Well, then you should be here in the Russian River.
Natalie MacLean (18:16):
I think – I’m not on commission or anything – but I buy La Crema by the caseload.
Marcy Gordon (18:23):
Oh, wow. Well, I do that too. I must admit.
Natalie MacLean (18:26):
It’s so good. It’s so good. But I love Sonoma in particular among all the California regions, because it just excels at cool climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, any of the cool climate grapes. But that’s my go-to, I mean, I am a pinot fan. If I could be a wine, I’d be a Pinot Noir because I find the wines are lively and edgy, but always sort of teetering on the verge of collapse. They’re very interesting like people. They’re thin skinned and I like that in people in grapes, because I think you get to know those wines and people better, right?
Marcy Gordon (19:02):
They’re a little persnickety.
Natalie MacLean (19:03):
Yeah, exactly. High maintenance, whatever. It’s a whole bundle of things, isn’t it?
Marcy Gordon (19:07):
There’s some lovely pinots in the Okanagan, too.
Natalie MacLean (19:10):
There are. It’s a terrific region in Canada. They tend to be I find even more robust than some of the cooler climate Sonoma wines, even though they are farther north.
Marcy Gordon (19:22):
Yeah, well, there’s definitely a difference for sure.
Natalie MacLean (19:25):
Yeah, exactly. Because the last 30 miles of the Sonoran Desert, but I love Pinots from both. Of course. I have to give a shout out to the Okanagan as well as Niagara. Sonoma has a very special place in my heart and in my wine repertoire.
Marcy Gordon (19:41):
I’m excited to see this book when it is out.
Natalie MacLean (19:44):
Yeah, this book really brought to closure to that chapter of my life. It was not only cathartic, it just makes me feel like, okay, now I’ve told my story. I hope my story can help others as we talked about. It’s like I lifted a stone off my own heart.
Marcy Gordon (20:05):
So Natalie, what wine pairs with catharsis?
Natalie MacLean (20:11):
Well, catharsis at first. I was going to say an Amarone, something that goes down strong with a bitter finish.
Marcy Gordon (20:17):
Yes.
Natalie MacLean (20:19):
But that just sounds mean. It sounds like I didn’t learn anything.
Marcy Gordon (20:21):
But that is a good choice. Wow. Yeah.
Natalie MacLean (20:25):
I think with catharsis, I’m going to go back to Pinot Noir because it’s so packed with flavour and juicy and sense of life.
Marcy Gordon (20:32):
And release.
Natalie MacLean (20:33):
Yes, especially on glass two. But it’s not heavy on the alcohol and the tannin and everything else. So there is no bitter aftertaste as there should be or shouldn’t be in the case of this. So yeah, I would definitely go with a nice Pinot Noir.
Marcy Gordon (20:49):
A nice levelheaded wine.
Natalie MacLean (20:51):
Exactly. Yeah. But still a little edgy, right? Still has some zest.
Marcy Gordon (20:55):
It still has some great aspects.
Natalie MacLean (20:58):
Yes, exactly.
Beth Costa (21:00):
Well, I’m super excited about this. It was really great to hear your voice.
Marcy Gordon (21:05):
Thank you so much for your time, Natalie. Really enjoyed the book, and we’ll see you on the Wine Road.
Natalie MacLean (21:10):
Absolutely. Marcy, this was a delight. Raise my to you both.
Beth Costa (21:14):
Thank you. Thanks for calling it. Talk to you soon.
Natalie MacLean (21:16):
Cheers.
Jeff Sammut (21:22):
Award-winning wine expert, bestselling wine writer, podcast host and author of her memoir Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too much. Natalie MacLean, joining us on Canada now. Hey, Natalie. Congratulations on your memoir.
Natalie MacLean (21:40):
Oh, thank you, Jeff. It’s good to be here with you.
Jeff Sammut (21:41):
Well, thank you. And boy, you are such an amazing example of having to battle back and a true coming of middle age story. Was your first battle having to deal with the shock and outcome of your husband of 20 years asking for a divorce?
Natalie MacLean (22:00):
Yes. My really terrible, no good, awfully bad vintage, started with the divorce and ended with defamation. So I got all the dismal Ds into one neat package that year, but I remember walking into the bedroom on January 21st, and I knew something was off. And so I started asking questions: do you feel okay? do you have prostate cancer? And he kept shaking his head. And then after more questions about family and work and health, I sort of grasped at the unthinkable. And just to rule it out, I said, do you want a divorce? And he said, what if I did? And he sat down on the chair by the bed, and I just whispered, what? And I nearly fell off the bed as I tried to sit down, and I was listening to the emotional content of what he was saying, but not the words. And all I felt was panic and how could I have missed this?
And so his words felt like they were coming at me like shrapnel, like drifted apart, and we can’t, and so on. So it made me question everything. I mean, I was looking at now the rubble of our relationship but under that shock was shame. I had to ask myself, who am I if I’m not his wife? I felt like I failed the wife test, even though I know a strong marriage takes two. But 20 years, Jeff is a long time to let your guard down to stop wondering if it’s going to work out, because obviously it has until it doesn’t.
Jeff Sammut (23:37):
Yeah. So I mean, in retrospect, what did you miss in letting your guard down, in I’m not saying ignoring the signs, because that’s knowing they’re there and looking the other way on them, but what did you miss all that time?
Natalie MacLean (23:54):
Yeah, I think I missed the fact, or I was going on the assumption that after 20 years you settle into companionable contentment and everyone knows the novelty of a relationship. There’s sparks flying and it’s a heady time. But I thought after 20 years you kind of know who you are. You’ve both settled into your careers. You have children, you know what you want, but if you don’t stay in touch, if you make those assumptions without questioning them and without talking to your partner, are we still on the same track, so to speak with this relationship? I think that’s what I didn’t notice and failed to do because clearly we were on two very separate tracks.
Jeff Sammut (24:39):
On top of everything else you have a son to think about, too.
Natalie MacLean (24:43):
Exactly. So he was 14 at the time, and I had to fight to remain in our family home so that he could stay at the same school with the same friends. But also I wasn’t willing to share the adult issues involved in this divorce with him until he became an adult himself. I thought he really deserves to enjoy 14-year-old thoughts. Although a decade later when he asked me about that time when we were chatting on the phone, I shared more details with him and he said, I’m sorry you had to go through that. And I responded, wow. we’ve eventually got all the details settled, straightened out eventually. And he said, no, I mean the rest of it how you felt so alone. And he couldn’t see me smiling or that my face was pretty wet.
Jeff Sammut (25:34):
Well, the rest of it. And that feeling of being alone, what did all that lead to?
Natalie MacLean (25:41):
It leads you to a lot of introspection or it did in my case, and a lot of therapy. Some people like to just jump into the next relationship or keep going or stuff it down. I mean, everybody deals with divorce and other traumas in life differently. But for me, it made me question everything like who I was, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be in the future, did I want a new relationship? All kinds of things. So in that respect, I was glad that I kind of got knocked off my horse and midlife was forced to really reexamine everything.
Jeff Sammut (26:19):
The drinking too much part of your book, one might assume that that was as a result of divorce.
Natalie MacLean (26:27):
Yes. I do think it was situational because I was using it as a crutch both to deal with the depression of the divorce and then the anxiety from the online attack defamation. Although alcoholism runs in my family, my father was an alcoholic, so I’ve always been very much aware of it. And my relatives think it’s a little bit amusing that I chose to write about wine. They talk about a moth to a flame. But I used to use my drinking habits as fodder for humour. My first book was Red, White and Drunk All Over. But now I hope they’ll feel a discussion on over-drinking, both for those who read the book as well as those in the industry. This really isn’t a wine book, but I think it’s the story of many in our industry because drinking, when you’re in this profession is either viewed as an occupational duty, you’re out at another winemaker dinner or there’s shame in admitting you have a problem. And US Department of Health and Statistics show that the hospitality industry, which includes wineries and restaurants, has the highest rate of substance abuse among all professions.
Jeff Sammut (27:36):
Wow. So what did it take for you to curb your drinking and then of course deal with your depression?
Natalie MacLean (27:45):
I had to develop a lot of different techniques. It may sound weird to those outside the industry, but I’ve always been able to section off personal from professional wine, and it’s like a movie critic who goes to a movie I would hope once in a while, just for the fun of watching it rather than having to take notes for the review and all that sort of thing. So the difference I always say to my online course students, the difference between tasting and drinking is spitting and thinking. So that was one aspect of it and it was really the personal wine, so to speak, that was getting out of control and used as a crutch for what was happening. So again, with lots of therapy and the therapy sessions are in this book. It’s not a self-help book, but a lot of early readers have reported back that the techniques that I used are really helping them.
Jeff Sammut (28:35):
Yeah, yeah, I get that. Well with this book, you have an outlet to share your experiences, but you also are the host of Unreserved Wine Talk named one of the seven Best Drink podcasts by the New York Times and one of Apple’s Best Listens of the year. Congratulations on that. How is it to have that outlet as well?
Natalie MacLean (28:57):
I love this. I love the whole podcast milieu. It draws me in because it’s, as you know, Jeff, long form interviewing which is right up there for me with long form writing narrative, and it gives me a calling card to reach out to the most fascinating people in the world of wine and really dig into their stories. We’re not talking about Hungarian Oak versus French Oak on my show. We’re talking about the stories of the people behind the wines because I think every book has a story. Every bottle has a story, and that’s really my focus, what goes on around the glass.
And so as an introvert and someone who is very shy, it also gives me a calling card to ask almost impertinent questions. I would never ask at a dinner party, what did you learn from your greatest failure? Things like that, right? And you can dig in and you can get to know someone even in that short period of time, I think, on such a satisfying level because you skip all the talk about the weather and everything else.
So I absolutely love the podcast medium as a way of connecting. Radio was always my favorite as well. Growing up, I wasn’t hugely into TV but I had a short wave satellite radio. And I would listen to the BBC at night blowing in and out over the Atlantic. And I think it comes from a love of reading and being read to as a child. The podcast radio medium is so intimate. You are beside, you are millimeters away from, someone’s brain in someone’s ear, and then the person listening has to co-create with the theatre of their mind all the details that you’re talking about.
Jeff Sammut (30:39):
That’s what I love about radio as well from a listener’s standpoint and from a host’s standpoint as well. And this kind of recalls what we were talking about with dating. I think this show taps into the part of me that looks at the idea of dating at this point in my life, which I’m obviously not doing, but that is intriguing because I have a genuine curiosity in people, and that’s why I like doing what I do. And dare I say, I think you have that genuine curiosity in people, and that’s why you’re enjoying the podcast.
Natalie MacLean (31:13):
Absolutely, yes.
Jeff Sammut (31:15):
Well check out nataliemaclean.com. winewitchonfire.com as well. And of course, her new memoir Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much. Natalie MacLean, good of you to join us. Thanks for telling your story, and we appreciate it. We’ll talk again.
Natalie MacLean (31:33):
Well cheers to you, Jeff. Thank you for inviting me here to chat with you. I really enjoyed this.
(31:43):
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chats with Beth, Marcy, and Jeff. In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with these hosts, links to their websites and podcasts, the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now, no matter where you live. You can also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me called The Five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them forever at nataliemaclean.com/class. I’ll put that link and all the other links in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/262.
Email me if you have a sip, tip, question or if you’ve read my book or in the process of reading it at natalie@natalie maclean.com. I’d love to hear from you.
If you missed episode 105 and go back and take a listen. I chat about festive wine and cheese pairings with author Janet Fletcher. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.
Janet Fletcher (32:50):
There are lots of similarities to me. One of the biggest ones is that cheese makers like wine makers start with the simplest palate of ingredients. They have milk and they have cultures and they have rennet. It just like winemakers have grapes and yeast, great juice, fresh liquids that are going to be fermented. What gives us such a range of taste experiences in the cheese world or the wine world are the decisions that the producer makes along the way to take it in one direction or another. And of course, with wine, there’s a little more of that place element that comes into play a little bit less so with most cheeses. But with cheese, it’s more that the cheese maker makes a million little decisions all along the way in that recipe that takes milk and cultures and a little bit of rennet and makes so many different kinds of cheese.
Natalie MacLean (33:43):
If you like this episode, please email or tell one friend about it this week, especially someone who’d be interested in the wines, tips, and stories we shared. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean Wine on their favourite podcast app.
You won’t want to miss next week when we chat with Mandy Naglich, who has just published How to Taste a Guide to Discovering Flavour and Savouring Life. She’ll join us from her home in New York City. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week, perhaps a heartbreakingly beautiful Pinot noir from Sonoma.
You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.
