diff --git a/djcelery_email/tasks.py b/djcelery_email/tasks.py
index 6e219b9..93fbd50 100644
--- a/djcelery_email/tasks.py
+++ b/djcelery_email/tasks.py
@@ -21,8 +21,8 @@
     TASK_CONFIG['base'] = import_string(TASK_CONFIG['base'])
 
 
-@shared_task(**TASK_CONFIG)
-def send_emails(messages, backend_kwargs=None, **kwargs):
+@shared_task(**TASK_CONFIG, bind=True)
+def send_emails(self, messages, backend_kwargs=None, **kwargs):
     # backward compat: handle **kwargs and missing backend_kwargs
     combined_kwargs = {}
     if backend_kwargs is not None:
@@ -39,8 +39,9 @@ def send_emails(messages, backend_kwargs=None, **kwargs):
     conn = get_connection(backend=settings.CELERY_EMAIL_BACKEND, **combined_kwargs)
     try:
         conn.open()
-    except Exception:
-        logger.exception("Cannot reach CELERY_EMAIL_BACKEND %s", settings.CELERY_EMAIL_BACKEND)
+    except Exception as e:
+        logger.warning("Cannot reach CELERY_EMAIL_BACKEND %s", settings.CELERY_EMAIL_BACKEND)
+        self.retry(exc=e, countdown=2 ** self.request.retries)
 
     messages_sent = 0