Liquid Love Letter: Wine & Mental Health Awareness

You’ve probably seen that May is Mental Health Awareness month and this week, Matthew and I would like to hover over the intersection of wine and mental health.

Let’s start with this: We are not mental health professionals. We are neither doctors nor therapists. Our perspective on mental health is shaped by decades of witnessing people at various points along the gamut of what would be called healthy and unhealthy relationships to alcohol.

Here are four behaviors I’ve registered over time about people who have a healthy relationship, mentally and emotionally, with wine.

When Enough is Enough

The other night I joined a group of friends for dinner and there were several bottles of wine on the table. The host asked me to serve as an ad hoc “sommelier,” which in this case meant to proactively pour the wines that each guest would enjoy. I did, slowly, up to two glasses each. (We each drove to the event and presumably would be driving home as well.) Some people at the table clearly would have enjoyed more wine if I had poured it, especially as the evening and the conversation continued on, but they didn’t ask and they didn’t reach for any bottle to pour for themselves. The takeaway is obvious: Just because a bottle of wine is there, doesn’t mean it needs to be drunk or drunk one glass after another after another. The pace of consumption matters.

There’s Always Food and/or Water

Which brings me to the second point, namely, a healthy relationship with wine involves consuming it alongside food and/or water. For water, the rule of thumb is one glass of water for each equivalent measure of wine. And wine at dinner, with food on the table and friends or family around, is both a no-brainer and the scenario to aim for. Food and water will moderate consumption; there’s that pace thing again.

It’s More About Pleasure and Less About Points or Price

Sure, our experience of wine often involves how much a wine costs and whether or not it’s received a high point rating by critics. But keep an eye on whether those are the primary drivers for a wine selection. If it is, it can quickly become a slippery slope for some sort of competition or one-upmanship, which saps the pleasure (uber quickly) from the experience.

More Likely to Share

One of my favorite indicators of a healthy relationship with wine is a willingness to share a bottle. We share because it’s GOOD; there’s the pleasure. We share because we don’t need to drink the whole bottle ourselves; there’s the pace of consumption. We share when we sit down with friends for a meal; there’s the combo with food and water. And we share because of the inherent sense of generosity that lovers of wine naturally bring to the table.