Does this wine make my butt look big? 🍷👀

If you're "aging" a bottle of wine on your kitchen wine rack, you're doing it wrong. That's the worst place to store wine. You're exposing it to light, temperature swings and pungent smells. If this is you, find the excuse you've been waiting for. Just open the bottle. When you are actually ready for the 5-10 year commitment of aging wine, do yourself a favor and invest in proper storage. Wine needs darkness, stable temperature, and time, not your kitchen counter

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.

I genuinely don't understand why plates exist. All you need is a cutting board and wine glasses. Try it tonight.🍷

Now that's some #Bitcoin Wine 🍷

You're being lied to about wine, Anon. To most people, vintage variation is entirely theoretical. They haven't actually experienced it and even if they have, it's a bit shrouded in mystery. Have you ever taken the time to open up 2 bottles from the same vineyard of different vintages at the same time and given them the attention it takes to recognize the differences? Vintage variation is ephemeral and hard to experience. That's exactly why it's become lost in most American wine. The average wine consumer is buying a $20-$30 bottle. They're picking by variety, then likely by finding a cool label. Once they find one they like, they stick with it because the wine aisle is an extremely daunting place to be. That wine brand now has their loose loyalty because you liked their product that one time and know where to find it on the shelf. If the winery makes a vintage that tastes different (not necessarily "worse") they could lose you as a customer. Not to mention, the ratings agencies that score wine have very specific flavor profiles they look for and, at the scale of these wineries, the difference between a 90 and a 91 score is millions and millions of dollars. The fiat wine world incentivizes manipulation, and sameness and blending between vineyards to the extent that vintage variation is an extreme afterthought and no one even knows they're missing it. But Ben, if no one even knows they're missing it, why should I care? Vintage variation is a look into the soul of wine. You can tell characteristics about the vineyard from any vintage, but the difference in taste year to year is that ephemeral bit that makes people go crazy about wine in the same way that people go crazy about bitcoin when they first start going down the rabbit hole. It's the secret sauce. It's what truly differentiates soulful wine from the grape derived alcoholic beverages that are created by food scientists in labs that pass for wine these days. Most bottles are just empty vessels. The soul was never invited in.

Wine is for winners.