Letter to the editor: Wine in the time of self-optimisation

Jeanri-Tine van Zyl.

The following received via email from Jeanri-Tine van Zyl, owner of Feed That Bird PR, a communications consultancy specialising in the wine and hospitality sectors. She is also a wine collector and fitness enthusiast: 

Tech millionaire, WHOOP investor and host of The Diary of a CEO, Steven Bartlett, claims that three glasses of wine ruined three days of his life – a ‘derailment’ he could track metric-for-metric on his WHOOP band. We find ourselves in the age of self-optimisation and hyper-quantification, and somewhere in this pursuit of perfection, we are all becoming perfectly lost.

My father was a runner. He collected coupons from Milo tins so he could exchange them for a Milo-branded digital watch that tracked his time.

When he ran, it was just him, long open roads, and a simple watch to clock him – no Strava kudos, no zone readings, no VO₂ max tests or cortisol readings. On Saturdays we would trek to obscure small dorpies and farmer festivals across the Free State in search of his next race. My dad was fit, lean and fast.

The only thing that could rival my father’s passion for running was his passion for wine. And, even as a medical professor, he never thought these two couldn’t coexist.

Once, the morning after a rather extensive vertical wine tasting with his trusted wine club, he had to run a 10km race. He admits they opened a few good ones. Had his Milo watch been tracking anything beyond time, it might have advised him to stay in bed.

Instead, he pulled a blêddie Gerda Steyn and blasted through that race in 36 minutes. His best time ever.

He is turning 71, and he still runs. He still dances with his wine, and with life.

From a young age, my father instilled in me an appreciation for wine as part of our family life. Wine anchored moments. It was there for gatherings and celebrations, for homecomings and Sundays.

As children, we watched my parents’ wine culture coexist comfortably with an active, healthy life. The backdrop was the ’90s, when biohacking meant wearing a mood ring. A colour chart set in fake silver was the only metric we needed to understand our bodies. Self-optimisation wasn’t a concept. There were no influencers selling us the idea – not even Jane Fonda doing glute bridges in her leg warmers.

It certainly wasn’t trending when I became a student. My friends and I paid what we could to explore wine and enter its world. We were on the wine-curiosity train together, with no app telling us to get off at the next station.

Fast forward to my apprenticeship at WINE Magazine, where a bottle of Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 solidified my life-long love for wine. 

What followed is one of the most gratifying growth experiences of my life. It isn’t something data can measure. Through wine I’ve been introduced to people and places that have exponentially contributed to the quality of my life. When I taste wine I engage my senses, I recognise patterns, I activate memories, and all of that fires up my brain’s cognitive system. The pleasure measure? Enough to make a WHOOP band malfunction.

Here’s the kicker: I’m serious about fitness, too, and as committed to my hybrid training as I am to wine. Which is why I feel compelled to say something about the self-optimisation trend and the underlying threat of wearable technology. In this data-hungry age, instead of trusting your body, we are made to believe that it is safer to have sensors collect your data every breathing moment. It is ‘healthier’ to allow data centres dictate your personal life. To outsource your metrics to hungry dragons who can spin this ammunition into claims that a moment of connection – or God forbid, indulgence – can cause you irrevocable misery. It is unfortunate that this is a narrative increasingly held by health lobbyists and reinforced by gym culture. At the hands of wearable technology we risk having a rich life turn into a series of math equations. Sleep scores, step counts, heart rates, calories. Health metrics that turn wellness into a competition. Wine into physiological stress.

Can wine share a leaderboard with wellness? Tragically, the numbers seem to suggest not.  

Wine consumption is declining, with global demand now at its lowest level in decades. If wine wore a bio-tracker, its HRV reading would be perpetually below baseline.

Fitness, meanwhile, is surging. HYROX, the world series of fitness racing launched in 2017, has grown into a billion-dollar industry. Run the numbers and wine’s decline looks dismal against the fitness industry’s explosive growth, a rise amplified by social media.

When COVID closed the gyms, Instagram filled the void. People turned their screens on themselves, documenting their at-home fitness journeys. The screens never turned back. Wellness and fitness influencers multiplied, feeding a relentless stream of workouts, recovery rituals, health metrics and #wellness content into algorithms that followed every digital breadcrumb and served up more of the same. In this world, wine lives and dies in 30-second edits that cast it as wellness’ great saboteur.

The verdict on the benefits and dangers of moderate wine consumption is a pendulum that swings whichever way your AI, algorithm, or confirmation bias, dictate. Some studies highlight the moderate intake of wine and its positive impact on long-term neuroprotection, others point out toxins and harsher medical realities.  

What is undeniable is that a healthy community is vital for human health. Connection is our basic mechanism for survival. Social ties are our buffer against decline. This is something wine has known for centuries, and the very reason for its existence. Isolation, in contrast, destroys.

Community and pleasure sits at the core of both the wine and the fitness fraternity – yet both of these industries risk losing its heart. One with its overbearing reliance – and perhaps perception – of elitism and barrier language, the other with its obsessive closed digital loops of competitiveness, self-monitoring and self-referencing.

Both can be isolating.

It shouldn’t ever be this complicated. Wine should step down from its tower and meet the consumers where they are. Industry insiders should stop positioning wine knowledge as the gateway to wine enjoyment. Bump the elitism like a heavy plate. Speak honestly about moderation. Market the cultural – but also contemporary – value of wine. Leave the echo-chambers and justify wine’s place in society.

The wellness community should face up to the dark side of the self-optimisation culture and stop treating wine like the match being struck at the foot of every hallowed fitness goal. Tech can measure but it can’t give you balance.   

Both industries should cancel screen culture and self-obsession.

Wine and wellness don’t need to be mutually exclusive: imagine wine brands sponsoring sports gear. Branded hydration vests. Congratulatory packs shipped to fitness enthusiasts with a bottle of fine wine and something restorative. Messaging that includes and supports wellness, and people in this sphere who advocate for balance – not a life measured in metrics, and certainly not a life lived on screens.

And here’s a novel thought: perhaps the watch does not always need to have the final word.

My father collected coupons for the watch. He never allowed the watch to collect his memories.