All My Baggage. Itemised.

I emptied out my rucksack the other day. Here’s all the baggage I carry around with me everyday.

I think I write best when it’s a stream of consciousness piece about nothing in particular.

Shure Medikit

The little Shure zippy thing is actually the outer case of my old in-ear stage monitors, I’ve had the little carry case for ever. Shure headphones are the best. Anyway, as I’ve grown older the contents of this case has changed, its now my permanent medi-kit.

I take anti-histamines every day.

Our bodies don’t naturally produce histamine (a form of Biogenic Amine), so all the histamine we need is found in our diet. Bodies naturally store as much as needed and quietly breakdown the rest.

Anti-histamines inhibit the effects of histamine, but don’t break excess down. The easiest way to overcome the issue is to eat a low-histamine diet. BUT. Histamines are in all the BEST things, anything fermented; wine, beer, cheese, kimchi, cured meat etc etc, along with a load of veggies.

My friend Daisy has recently quit drinking wine and had to massively change her diet due to finding out a histamine intolerance. I’m similar, I had tests a couple of years ago on the level of Diamine Oxidase (DAO) in my blood, that is the enzyme responsible for breaking down ingested histamine.

If you have an allergic reaction to something, your body releases it, and the reaction is that of hayfever, sneezy, wheeze, runny eyes (a lot of histamine is stored where the body needs to deploy it quickly), histamine released from stocks in your face in reaction to an allergy stimulus.

Well, if you can’t break it down due to low-levels of DAO, then it essentially feels like you’re having an allergic reaction to nothing specific pretty much all the time. Sounds fun doesn’t it.

I can’t be bothered to change my diet drastically.

I’m also riddled with other allergies, and asthma, so I keep this stupid zippy case in my rucksack all the time.

Clever marketing devices.

Some chap called Adam, from LinkedIn (Hi), is doing a very good job at targeting companies who might be interested in their bespoke wine club software. I run a winery DTC business with a wine club.

After I got my MW results, and just before harvest kicked off proper at the winery, Ben, Oli and I all received a little ‘Harvest Survival Pack’ from this company called Marzipan.

My kit had “Harvest” crossed out, replaced by a handwritten ‘MW”, with a note of condolence on the MW results. Someone has done their homework.

The survival kit included some Marzipan flavoured treats, and a little bottle of Amaretto. Clever.

Adam, I’m not currently in the market to book a discovery call but appreciated the gesture. If anyone else wants to take a look, reach out to them I guess.

I invented the pencil case.

I felt like I genuinely invented the concept of a pencil case when I put all stationary from the bottom of my bag in a small case a few years ago.

So many sharpies, various pens, phone charger cable, bits and bobs. Stationary detritus that would otherwise be knocking about at the bottom of my back. They’re safely zipped up in a pencil case.

Five bottle openers. Yes five¹.

• 1 in the front big pocket: The red one. From Cave Talmard in Burgundy.

• 1 in the little secret pocket at the back: Plain white, branded with the Vineyard.

• 3 just kicking around the bottom: One from an event with ‘Österreich Wein’. Another vineyard branded one. A lovely old black one, Adnams branding no longer visible.

I do carry around a bunch of random sentimental bits too. Things I can’t bring myself to throw away. Inside the pencil case is a foldable 30cm ruler, I think I got it in one of those Oxford Stationary sets a LONG time ago.

I’ve used it right through the MW programme, for my practical tasting grid. After this year’s exam, perhaps ominously, it snapped in two as it wasn’t inside the pencil case. My fault.

I put both bits back thinking I might try and fix it. I won’t. If I rejoin the study programme, I’ll buy a new one.

My Herschel wallet purse

I got laughed at when I bought this wallet. Apparently it’s a purse. It’s made by Herschel, it looks cool. I liked the brand, my long-standing rucksack², suitcase, hold-all and wallet is from them. Good sturdy stuff.

Anyway, I never liked a double open wallet, always too chunky, and the coins never stay in, so wanted one with a zip. Always a fan of finding just the right particular item for my requirements… I found this wallet from Herschel, and got laughed at by my buddies for it.

Anyway suckers, I’ve still got it, because it’s still the best solution. I barely take it out of my bag. There’s a handful of physical cards I don’t really need (ahem, applepay).

The most important thing that lives in there is my wedding ring. Oh, yeah, I don’t wear it, I just keep it with me at all times, in the bottom of my rucksack in a small coin purse. Obviously.

Wine GB lanyard and assorted business cards.

I love a lanyard, got loads of them, my keys live on one. I think there’s always a couple knocking around in there from various events. Big part of the corporate wine world is a nice lanyard. Wine fair, trade show.

Most recently there's one from the WineGB show. They colour code the guests by their lanyard so you know if they’re a serious wine buyer, someone pretending to be a journalist, one of those pesky Influencers, or more often than not, another exhibitor doing some market research.

I also take any opportunity I can to steal MW merchandise.

Since they kicked me out of the programme for failing too many times, I can comfortably reveal this titbit of info³: I’ve got my ‘MW Student’ exam lanyard from every attempt somewhere, along with a small collection of name badges.

Postcard from Acre farm

Keeping this because I’m jealous of almost everything about these guys. Wood fired bread by day, vineyards, a lovely spot on a farm. Idyllic, and aspirational.

https://www.acrefarm.org/

Sunglasses & Sun Cream

I host the vineyard tours pretty regularly, if you’re thinking of visiting, we don’t shy away from the nitty gritty of the viticulture or the winemaking process.

I was hosting in the winery tour and a group of 12 got to watch pumpovers, punchdowns, racking from tank to foudre and out new 8-tonne press in action in the space of 30 minutes. Harvest tours are the best.

We're also out in the vineyards for a good while, so I just have sunglasses and sun cream in my bag pretty much all the time.

Other Items:

• Hair wax - Although as I’m growing my hair again, this is becoming increasingly redundant.

• Almonds and Cashews / Snacks. - Always with the snacks. I quite often don’t bother with lunch, but I do have a permanent snack drawer at work.

• Phone charger.

• Laptop & iPad. - Yeah, both. Whatever.

• Ear plugs. - Never use these. Redundant study idea.

Thoughts on anything I haven’t mentioned from the photo in the comments please.

See ya later.

dk

1. This is some content for the wine nerds that know precisely where and when every single bottle opener they own was acquired. None of them paid for.

2. Full disclosure my current rucksack is from Roka, but I still use the Herschel one for travel.

3. Sarah, I promise to give them back when I graduate, whenever that may be.