Aanab News in 2024
A recap and a road map
I’ve been building this wine thing for 5 years now. Up until I published this very newsletter, I still hadn’t perfected my elevator pitch because what I’ve been building here has been in constant flux.
First it was wine classes, then there was a podcast, then there were mailers, a Patreon, a newspaper, and a shop. I moved from Beirut to Los Angeles and back again. Things kept shifting around me and I kept chipping away at what this was supposed to be, what it would be made up of, and what it would encompass as a subject. I was also reevaluating and reworking what this platform was in relation to where I was physically and mentally.
Aanab News: A summary of what came before.
Whenever I met new people in parallel, my answer to, ”so what do you do?” was insufficient. I oversimplified it to avoid a longer, unbound spiel but I undervalued myself in the process. My verbal vomit made it seem like I did not have a way with words, I just had too many of them. The core of my work is personal so sometimes, it feels like an extension of my self. As a result, I was internalizing the shrunken version I was presenting to people even though I knew it wasn’t the whole picture.
In the midst of this self doubt, I was convinced that this industry could teach me things and it had places where it needed someone like me to push back. I felt like I had found a corner of our culture that I understood and could stand out in.
STATE OF THE MEDIA & THE WINE INDUSTRY
I’ve tried my best to be that person, someone who is consistent, informative, and critical with care. It’s been a tough space to navigate on my own. At times I’ve felt unwelcome, dismissed, and underestimated and a lot of that treatment has felt gendered.
I got into self-publishing because I was tired of pitching to editors who would decide what stories were worth telling or would tell me the angle needed to make them so. If the stories moved at all, the process was too slow and the pay too little to justify the hoops I’d have to jump through for 3 to 6 months. I stuck to the editors I trusted and increasingly invested my ideas into this platform and, eventually, I stopped pitching elsewhere completely.
As the legacy media landscape disintegrates, more writers will be out here sending reader-funded newsletters. The competition for eyeballs spikes with every round of layoffs and more independent writers will depend on the subscription dollars of those who are still conventionally employed.
The wine industry in Lebanon has a different understanding of “wine writer”. That title is associated with wine scores, reviews, and fluff pieces. Journalists who are writing about our wine tend to be foreign and their work tends to come from a place of perpetual awe. I don’t blame them. The way things “run” here - or the fact that they run at all - is miraculous.
It seems like an unspoken expectation though. A wine writer, especially one that can influence a foreign audience with purchasing power, is supposed to see everything through a glamorous spyglass that depicts the Lebanese as the resilient Phoenician traders rising from the ashes of their modern-day trireme that is Lebanon.
There used to be a few articles written on the wine scene in Executive Magazine. Once a year, post-harvest, they would do an overview of where the industry was and what the plans were. But then, the main journalist behind those pieces, Nabila Rahhal, relocated to Dubai after Lebanon’s financial collapse and the magazine hasn’t published anything new on the wine sector since October 2019.
In the rare one-off piece on wine and/or agriculture written by locals, they’re reporting on the status quo. Don’t get me wrong, that work is necessary. Sadly, pieces that go a step further to question or critique aren’t seen as helpful or patriotic by the industry when they are already up against so much. Published work should only be complimentary because shining light on the dark spots isn’t being a team player, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t have skin in the game like them1. There is no such thing as challenging, unearthing, or finding out what’s under the whipped meringue without causing harm. The mere act is harmful in itself.
THE RATTLING OF A GENOCIDE
The genocide in Gaza was a wake up call to check in with my internal compass. I’ve questioned if my digging as an amateur scholar is more than just a millennial hyper-fixation gone too far. Does what I do align with my morals? Am I doing work I’m proud of? Am I free to question and challenge the structures I live in? Am I free, period?
Upon this backdrop, the things that peeved me about wine’s contradictory and exclusionary nature became louder than ever. Things like how grapes are one of the most common crops in the world but its ferment in a bottle is a signifier of taste and wealth. How Middle Eastern is exotic as long as it’s a superficial classifier but a closer likeness to European is what a producer should strive for. How wine is alcohol but it’s painted as less destructive to the body than hard liquor. How wine primarily caters to an older, white, male demographic despite it being at risk of getting left behind by the next generations. And, of course, how wine’s allergic to politics so its drinkers and thought leaders exist in a reality that is untouched by the horrors of genocide, colonialism, and capitalism.
Do I want to contribute to that reality or tear it all down swim against the current with my disruptive analysis of Lebanon’s indigenous grapes? Musar’s local popularity?
As I said in the December 2023 monthly dispatch, I've felt too radical for this space and that’s because I was looking at a box (wine writer) that didn’t fit me. In every job I’ve had until now, my breaking point has been outgrowing the pot I was put in. Instead of being re-potted, I was told to shrink. Well, being self-employed means I’m planted in a forest. There is no pot. There is no box. There is no spoon.
Aanab News isn’t turning into something else.
I’m owning what it is.
“Wine writer” as a descriptor hasn’t resonated with me because the understanding of what wine writing is doesn’t reflect what I do. I don’t like writing winery profiles or anything that feels remotely promotional. My work is not just about wine and, if you’ve been here long enough, you know that already.
Aanab News will remain a publication that unpacks observations of the wine industry between Lebanon (and its neighbors) and abroad (mostly the U.S.) for now. However, it will also grow to accommodate more of what wine was a device for (a deeper understanding of our heritage) and it will expand to include other facets of our history and culture.
WHAT’S CHANGING IN 2024
My goal is to decrease the number of brands and channels I’ve been running and concentrate my energy on Aanab News, the newsletter. I’m exploring film as a medium as well.
Bambi’s Soapbox will remain online but no new essays will be published there. Any work separate from this newsletter is compiled on my personal website.
The B for Bacchus website and shop have been shut down. The B for Bacchus Instagram will be retired in that it will stay online but be inactive. All future Instagram activity will be from my personal account only.
Published episodes of the B for Bacchus podcast will remain online but there will be no new episodes. Any unpublished recordings I have are now at least 2 years old. I love the medium but, with the podcast’s current format, I don’t have the bandwidth to keep at it anymore.
Aanab Annual, a print almanac of wine news in Lebanon and the neighboring region, is still a dream but print for a global audience is slow, wasteful, and expensive. Time and money are not resources I can play with when operating out of a quickly-changing place like Beirut.
The Aanab News brand is the online newsletter and nothing else. I’ve reworked the branding and visuals. I’ve killed off the Whole Bunch and Brainfood/Berry Picking subcategories and restructured the output to the one outlined below.
The Subscriptions.
Free Subscribers.
I publish every Tuesday. The monthly and the essay are published at the beginning and middle of the month, bookended by previews of paid posts like so:
1st Tuesday: Monthly (free)
2nd Tuesday: Unfiltered (paywalled)
3rd Tuesday: Essay (free)
4th Tuesday: Grapevine (paywalled)
This might vary but I want to stick to an alternating rhythm. Each category will be accessible through the main navigation bar. For the oddball months that have more than four Tuesdays, you’ll get a bonus *free* newsletter. All posts are paywalled one month after being published.
Paid Subscribers.
Starting this February, paid subscribers will get two extra posts every month, Unfiltered and Grapevine, and a total of four newsletters per month.
Unfiltered is a quick study of the latest short I’m working on. It’s a behind-the-scenes of my work-in-progress. Inspirations, the idea I’m trying to capture, maybe even the rough script I’m playing with. It could feature clips that are beautiful but won’t make the final cut. It’s the process.
Grapevine is a monthly list of recommended things to read (books not links), think about, experience, or see (mostly in Lebanon) including art exhibits, films, performances, or anything that I found inspiring. Think of it as a curated moodboard of micro-utopias that is up-to-date and focuses more on the physical rather than the digital. I understand that this may not be of interest to those who are abroad but 1) it won’t be entirely Lebanon-specific and 2) even when it is, it can help you plan your visits and is a way to be plugged in on what goes on over here from wherever you are.
You’ll also get access to the full Aanab News archive.
I’m going to level with you.
I’m not looking to scale Aanab News so that it’s a massive publication and that’s not just about keeping overhead low.
I have no interest in running a massive empire or managing a team of twenty. I’m capable of that but I don’t want that weight. My focus and energy are too fragmented as it is.
I’d love for this work to be how I support myself but I also don’t have unrealistic expectations about this niche of a niche newsletter being the thing that will completely fund my life forever and ever. Being a reader-run publication is beautiful but it’s hard for readers to financially support all the creators they love. Trust me, I have so many Substack tabs open and I want to sprinkle monies on them all but I can’t. I get it.
With that said, I put a lot of time into researching and writing these newsletters and I want this to be a stream of income that I can depend on. I don’t want to be lured away by the stability of corporate salaries2 if my creative work can put food in Pen’s bowl.
I’m not aiming to make A LOT of money. I want enough for me and Pen to be comfortable and healthy, that’s it. There’s power (and privilege)3 in wanting and knowing that I want that.
My 2024 goal is to continue the growth trend of 2023 and hit 100 paid subscribers. I’ll be over the moon with that and it will motivate me to continue pushing within this space.
At the 2023 rate, a paid annual subscription was less than a dollar per week.
Even though I’ve cut down on major drains, running a digital newsletter alone still has costs4. Substack also keeps 10% of the subscription revenue and a percentage is lost to the credit card companies too. If this site’s following magically grows beyond my comfort one day, I’ll be able to donate to causes and commission work from other local creatives but I truly don’t want this to snowball beyond the current one-woman show. I want to remain at a capacity I can sustain and enjoy while doing so.
If you feel Aanab News has added something to your weekly inbox scroll, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. If you can’t financially swing it right now but you want to be supportive, do the fun free stuff: like, share, and forward to friends.
The subscription rate is increasing to $7/month, $70/year but if you subscribe before Jan 31st, you can get it at the 2023 rate - a dollar less actually!
LASTLY, MY BIG FAT LEBANESE THANK YOU
Thank you for reading this and reading anything else that’s come before it. I am honored to have a morsel of your attention when that is such a hard currency to earn from others today.
If you have feedback on how Aanab has developed and/or where it’s headed, please drop a comment below.
Love & olives,
Farrah
It’s tough to be critical of the same crowd that are your primary sources. In Lebanon, we don’t have neutral bodies where I can get information or statistics and, even if we did, I’d still have to take their perspective into consideration when analyzing their world. The people I write about are also the people who give me a backstage pass. Even though I’m not in the business of exposés, I can easily lose access if I appear to only use it against the people who grant it to me. Doing so is not my style anyway but the point is: I can’t afford to lose their trust in me when I can’t do this job without their input. However, that doesn’t mean I only publish things they approve of. It means I am careful and fair about what I do publish.
Over the summer, I was flirting with the idea of taking a full-time, senior job in advertising that would give me a decent-for-Lebanon paycheck. I had convinced myself that I could relegate this work (the newsletter) to a side-hustle and I could remove the anxiety of needing to monetize my creative outlets. When I did the math though, returning to a corporate structure would’ve drained me creatively and physically. That industry would’ve enabled my (toxic) tendency to prioritize work over everything. On top of that, after some investigating, the company’s culture wasn’t what I wanted to get entrenched in. The cost of that tradeoff was too high and, because I can afford to live simpler right now, I ended the hiring process early.
When I was still starting out in wine, a Lebanese winemaker asked what my goal was with what I was doing. I presented my idealistic hopes to advocate for Lebanese wine as a knowledgeable citizen and consumer. At some point, he asked if I was married to see if I had a family to support because that would mean I may need to compromise my lofty convictions (like staying independent, avoiding being a paid mouthpiece, unpacking the reality of Lebanon with nuance and honesty, etc) for the sake of proper compensation. I recognize that not needing to factor that into my needs gives me some flexibility and it means I require less money to exist. However, being childfree and unattached doesn’t make me less deserving of financial stability. It also doesn’t make it wrong for me to seek out opportunities that pay what I deserve as long as they align with my ethics and values.
If I put food, utilities, and healthcare bills aside and boil it down to just what I pay for to do this work, it’s the following: wine, creative tools (like Adobe Creative Suite software and Apple/Minolta hardware), educational tools (like webinars, books, or subscriptions and memberships to other news sites), a domain name, larger internet data bundles, and gas or car maintenance needed specifically after winery visits thanks to Lebanon’s fucked infrastructure.
I feel this so much! I've been restructuring and re-envisioning all month too, and I'm so happy for you making this shift! Big hug.