You can determine a lot about a profession based on the kind of people who choose to do it. I’ve worked in various fields: luxury retail, adventure travel, magazine publishing, even holistic health. I’ve encountered myriad eclectic people along the way, from the horror novel-writing wine editor to the massage therapist who based her day on the number of red lights she encountered on her drive into work (more than two meant the day was inauspicious). But in my experience, no field attracts more interesting, some would even say inspired, characters than the wine business.

Reams could be written on the circuitous, often incredible paths that lead people to a winemaking or wine business career. This is a field in which following your bliss is almost a given for anyone making wine. Time and again, impassioned souls have detailed their journey—usually one in which dependable, lucrative careers are dumped in one dramatic, leap-of-faith moment—and said that winemaking or a wine career chose them, and not the other way around. This is often said of creative careers like writing, painting and acting. People talk about how they surrendered to it, because it was as essential as breathing. Winemaking in particular is often talked about the same way. It’s a calling, and not always an easy one. Risks are taken, lifestyles are altered. Suits come off, and hands go into the dirt. Careers can be made or broken by the whims of Mother Nature.

Yet despite the uncertainty of success in the career (and for those wealthy enough to start a wine business, the sheer possibility of financial ruin), these people just seem happy. There’s a liberated energy about them because many of them chose to trust the voice inside that told them to take the chance, and forced them to believe in themselves in a way they may never have before. Winemaking is a serious business, it’s expensive, and it’s risky.  But it’s also one of depth. It’s a place where the heart and the head intersect; a place that welcomes creative minds, technical minds and trailblazers. And people willing to take a risk.

New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield said “Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”  Maybe it’s that honesty that makes wine people so refreshing, so complex.  They’ve taken a leap, and the water’s just fine.

Susan Kostrzewa is the Senior Editor and Web Editor of Wine Enthusiast Magazine. In addition to co-authoring two books on literary travel, she has written and edited wine, food and travel stories for the past 10 years. Kostrzewa currently tastes and rates wines from South Africa, Greece, Hungary and New York, among others, for WE.

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