Songfacts®:

• This jazz-influenced song finds Adele doing some self-analysis following her split from husband Simon Konecki.
  
  So I hope I learn to get over myself
  Stop tryin' to be somebody else
  So we can love each other for free
  Everybody wants somethin', you just want me
  
  Outside pressures are turning Adele into someone she barely recognizes. With the help of a few glasses of wine, the wounded superstar tries to mend her shattered self-esteem. "I took everything so personally at that period of time in my life," she explained to Rolling Stone. "So the lyric 'I hope I learn to get over myself' is like [me saying] 'Once I've done that, then maybe I can let you love me.'"
• How can one become so bounded by choices that somebody else makes?
  How come we've both become a version of a person we don't even like
  
  The conversational song finds Adele trying to move on from her marital debris, but anxiety and panic make it hard to focus on her goals. "That song is basically like 50 questions I'm asking myself," she told Audacy's Julia. "It felt like it was the beginning of me coming out."
• Adele recorded the song for her fourth album, 30. The record details the breakdown of her marriage, the mental turmoil, and reclamation of self. "I feel like this album is self-destruction, then self-reflection and then sort of self-redemption," she told Vogue. "But I feel ready. I really want people to hear my side of the story this time."
• Adele originally came up with the song title as a joke before deciding to keep it. There is only one reference to wine in the lyrics:
  
  When I was a child, every single thing could blow my mind
  Soaking it all up for fun, but now I only soak up wine
• Adele had been knocking back the booze during lockdown, but while preparing to record 30, she cut out drinking to protect her voice.
• Adele put on different characters while recording the sassy, '60s-inspired background vocals. "It made it less intimidating," she told Rolling Stone, "because some of the things I'm talking about really hit home for a lot of people."
• Adele wrote the ballad with American producer Greg Kurstin. He is one of the singer's go-to collaborators, having helmed the lead singles for 25 ("Hello") and 30 ("Easy On Me").
• "I Drink Wine" was originally 15 minutes long until Adele's record label told her it wouldn't get played on the radio at that length.
• Adele debuted the song ahead of 30's release when she performed it on her American TV special Adele: One Night Only on November 14, 2021.
• American filmmaker Joe Talbot directed the amusingly camp video. Clad in a gold Valentino gown, Adele floats along a river holding a glass of wine.
  
  The video was the first one filmed for 30, but it wasn't made available until October 26, 2022, 11 months after the album's release.
• Adele wrote the first verse after a candid chat with James Corden while driving home from a joint family vacation.
  
  Speaking during the final installment of The Late Late Show segment Carpool Karaoke that aired on April 24, 2023, Adele expressed her gratitude towards James and his wife Jules for looking after her and her son Angelo during the trip and providing a much-needed sense of humor during tough times.
  
  During the six-hour drive home from their vacation, James had confided in Adele about his depression arising from work-related stress and problems with the internet. A few weeks after their conversation, moved by his honesty, Adele wrote about her experiences in the studio and sent the first draft to James.
  
  "It was everything that I was feeling that day," said Corden to Adele. "I was floored by how you'd managed to take everything that I was feeling about myself and life and just put it in a verse and it's the greatest privilege that something from a conversation so honest, between two friends, that you created such a thing."