It still feels special getting paid in Bitcoin for something I make with my hands. Does that feeling ever go away?

My cellar is completely full. I've been excited to have this problem since I started Peony Lane. You see, scaling up red wine production takes forever. You make more, then wait two years before you benefit from that investment. Scaling down is instant. Make less and buy bitcoin with the savings until your stock levels out. In 2019 I had no idea what direction Peony Lane would take, so I blindly grew production every year, knowing I could always pull back. Now that my business feels established and my youthful exuberance to take over the wine world has faded, I can enjoy the size I'm at and focus even more on quality over quantity. Though we have a new vineyard maturing into production, I'll be scaling down production quite a bit this year. My 2026 vintage will be my first Estate Only vintage.

I am out of sats from zapping. Get on Zero

I used to want to grow Peony Lane into a massive winery. Then I found bitcoin and bitcoiners. Now I care more about quality than quantity. Quality Wine. Quality Customers. Quality Relationships.

How many times have we seen this movie?

If Bitcoiners are Cyber Hornets, what should I call this wine?

Thicker skins. Slower sugar development. More complexity. Farming at High Elevation has major advantages. High elevation means intense UV making the grapes develop thicker skins to protect themselves. More skin = more phenolic compounds (tannin, color, structure). Cool nights slow the ripening process down. Sugar accumulates gradually. The grape hangs longer, developing flavor complexity instead of just sweetness. Hotter climates rush ripeness. At 5680 feet, we wait.

At a blind tasting with Pinot Noirs from around the world, professionals swore my 2023 Estate Pinot Noir was Burgundy. They were shocked by where it came from. The 2023 vintage is special to me. 5 years into Peony Lane Wine production, this was the vintage I had been waiting for. Each year before had gone wrong. 2019 was my first year making wine and the learning curve was steep. Normal crop. Average wine. 2020 was weird. California wildfires pushed birds off their migratory pattern. By the time we noticed, they'd eaten half our grapes. After harvest that Fall, a hard frost wiped out the whole state's crop. 2021: zero grapes. 2022 was a second recovery year. Vines had grown back from the roots, but they weren't ready to produce much quantity. Good wine, very little of it. By 2023 the vineyard was reestablished. Growing season went without a hitch. I got a full crop with amazing ripening. I was ready to take advantage of it as a winemaker and I'm proud to say it is the best wine I have ever made. People tell me they like my wine all the time, but when a blind tasting has professionals confidently declaring my wine to be a Burgundy, I know I did good.