Chablis Celebration

Not sure if anyone has noticed but I have been stuck in one of my “What should I write about?” spirals. The interviews have been helping a great deal, they are fun for me and to be honest…it means very little writing on my part. I just ask my silly questions and wait for the cool ass folks to answer them. I really do enjoy doing them but it has been pointed out to me that while they are or can be funny, some people miss hearing my voice. I think part of it has been lack of sleep. I’ve been living a life of little catnaps lately; wake up at four of five in the morning wide awake and my mind going a mile a minute. I get out of bed because I cannot tolerate the whole tossing and turning thing, just pisses me off…and I spend my morning with MSNBC, coffee and my laptop. Go to work feeling wide awake and ready but find by around four I am starting to wind down, feel sleepy. Get home to make and eat dinner and then I find myself nodding out on the couch around nine, not sleepy enough to go to bed but not able to keep my eyes open. Little naps keep me awake until one of two in the morning, stumble into bed and sleep until….four or five, think it’s getting to me.

I will confess that I have let this blog consume me a bit, when I am not checking my counter thing I am responding or playing around on one of the other blogs I spend time on. Work is the one place I am able to just leave the blog alone…I’m still thinking about it but in a less than consuming way and I do allow myself to check stats or respond while I am eating my lunch but for the most part I’ve learned, (and this took some time) to just let my obsession with this place be something I indulge in when I get home. Once home I am in full on stat checking and wracking my brain for topics that people might be interested in, that might pertain to wine and I can write about mode.

So I had been struggling a bit already and then I saw the announcement of the Wine Blog Awards…sigh. Now last year I was painfully addicted to watching this thing unfold over at Fermentation. My dear friend Benito of Benito’s Wine Reviews was kind enough to nominate me last year for one of the writing categories, I was so flattered and so aching to be taken seriously in this whole wine blogging business that I let myself get swept away a bit. Now I knew I would never win but was hoping to make it to the finals…well I did not of course and this year, a year later I am not only aware of why I did not….I’m comfortable knowing that I should not. These awards are for blogs that are much more wine related than Samantha Sans Dosage, sure I write about wine but there are just as many posts here that have nothing or very little to do with wine and you know what, I’m comfortable with that. I no longer ache to be included and rather like the fact that my blog has become a place where people come to read about something other than wine reviews…they seem to come to visit me. In that I have found the true award/reward. No little badge to post on my sidebar, no my award is found in the comments section of my posts where people not only respond to my stories they share some of their own, love that.




I was talking to my husband the other day, telling him that while I love having this place, adore the people that visit me here…that this blog may have run its course. I was feeling guilty about the idea of shutting down but feeling even more guilty that I may not have anything compelling enough to give my loyal readers. Totally stuck and leaning towards shutting down for a couple weeks just to think it over, that’s when my husband sent me a link to a blog ranking sight and one of my posts was very high on the list…not even sure what that means by the way but it was a very sweet gesture. I was still pretty sure it was time for a break at the very least when I woke up to find a couple new followers and a couple new comments, one from a brand new reader…now what to do?

I gave myself a few more days to think it over, just to make sure it wasn’t PMS or me just feeling lonely or some other crazy chick behavior…posted my latest interview and told myself to just spend a day or two away to clear my head. So I was working yesterday afternoon and a fairly regular customer of ours came up to me with her cart, “Can you help me find this wine?” she asked and I took her to find it. “While I have you here can you help me find some everyday drinking wines? I love your French wines and you always find me the tastiest daily drinkers” feeling all flattered I pulled the end of her cart around my French section depositing my latest discoveries into her cart. Clink-clink-clink the bottles landing upon each other as I “Oh you have to try this” and moved on to the next stack. “Oh and I need a good bottle of Chablis” she told me with a serious but strangely lit up face. “I am celebrating and I want to do it with a great bottle of Chablis” she continued. Now I always assume when people tell you that they are celebrating that they want you to ask them why, I mean why else share that right? So I did, I asked what she was celebrating….so did not expect to hear what I did.




“I have breast Cancer. I had it ten years ago so this is my second occurrence and they are going to have to do a mastectomy” I stood there, heart thumping at my ribcage, eyes filling up and with no words. “Now I know it might sound weird that I want to celebrate but everyone had been telling me that I would have to give up my wine” still no words from me. “I just talked to my surgeon and he told me that even though the surgery is invasive I will still be allowed to drink my wines, I’m just so grateful that I can still have that” I didn’t know I had been holding my breath but when she said that I felt and heard a loud exhale escape my body. She gave me a very wise look and I helped her pick a Chablis worthy of her celebration, the celebration of true courage and finding a silver lining. When I was ringing her up she held the bottle in her hand and said, “I will drink this tonight and think of you” I stood there feeling like I had just found my fairy godmother. “I should buy one too and drink it thinking of you” I responded. Spent the rest of the afternoon with busy work, getting stuff ready for this weekend’s big Cheese & Wine Fest, preparing to go to a trade tasting and putting up wines that had arrived during my days off…the day got away from me but that woman’s words, the spirit with which they were delivered did not. I did not buy that same Chablis but pulled one that had been resting in my little wine fridge from the same producer, Herve Azo 1er Cru Vau de Vey. Last night an older woman drank a young Chablis to celebrate her good fortune in the face of enormous loss and this slightly younger one drank and older Chablis to celebrate courage and wisdom. Cannot think of anything more unifying…



Cheers to you dear woman. Thank you for sharing…your story and courageous attitude, and the glass of Chablis. Reminding me how profoundly powerful that combination can be.

Guess I'll keep plugging away, sharing with my readers and hoping I can inspire them to see that wine is about so much more than what's in the bottle....