It has come to my attention that you guys think I'm drinking all the bottles of HIGHER myself.

Natural Means More in Wine Than in Food Chick'N Nuggets tricked me once. So I do appreciate that the “natural chicken” label means I’m not accidentally buying soybean slop, but that bird could’ve been raised a hundred different ways. “Natural flavors.” “All-natural.” “Naturally sweetened.” None of these mean anything on food packaging. Natural Wine still carries weight. France drew a legal line. To use the label vin méthode nature, winemakers have to use organic grapes, native yeast, no additives, no filtration, and no added sulfites. They also get audited. In Italy and Spain, there’s no legal standard, but strong winemaking communities set the rules. The pressure comes from peers and tradition, not the government. In the US, “natural wine” is not regulated, and the tradition is not nearly as strong, but before you assume systemic abuse, let's look at the incentives. Most wine in the US is mass produced. It is non-organic, high in sulfites, and heavily filtered. It sits so far from the specific definition of natural wine that labeling it that way would be a joke. Then, if you’re making higher-end wine, you’re not just competing locally. Your bottle sits next to wines from Burgundy, Piedmont, and Jura. The best wine regions set standards, so your wine is competing in a world where “natural” actually means something. Reputation is everything, and using the label carelessly would destroy your credibility. There is also a reputation problem in the US. Some people associate it with cloudy bottles that smell like a barn and taste worse. While those bottles won't make it to the liquor store, the perception exists. That reputation acts like a filter. If you’re selling to collectors or high-end restaurants, you don’t want your wine mistaken for something unrefined. Many producers following the same methods—native yeast, no filtration, no additives—choose to call their wines “low intervention” instead. So if you see “natural” on a wine label, you’re probably not being misled. The word still means something in the regions that matter, and Big Wine can’t even get close.

I thought wine was supposed to get more valuable with age. Everything in my cellar is losing value fast. Even as the bottles improve with age and each vintage gets more scarce, they lose value. Bitcoin is eating my lunch. Just in the last month, my wine is down 26% and I don't see this stopping any time soon. Once I understood this dynamic, that my wine is going to be devalued in bitcoin terms forever, I had two choices: 1) Reinvest back into my business to grow faster than bitcoin. 2) Sell wine for bitcoin and let that grow for me In some ways I'm lucky that scaling up a winery is so hard. I age red wine for 2 years before I sell it and there's no real way to speed that process up. How could I possibly justify an attempt to outgrow bitcoin? My choice was easy. For CPG businesses that cycle inventory faster, the decision isn’t as clear. How do you make the case for bitcoin to someone beating its historical CAGR by reinvesting into their business? They're killing it, but long term, do they really expect to outpace bitcoin? The pressure to scale constantly disappeared when I realized I didn’t have to grow just to survive. Just putting some of your sales in bitcoin lets it do a lot of the growing for you. Growth is a fine goal, but chasing it just to stay afloat wears entrepreneurs down. They trade sleep, family-time, and sanity in the hopes that they can keep up. Bitcoin can carry the growth pressure so you don't have to. Build the business you actually want, and let bitcoin carry the rest.

Zooming Out: How Winemaking Prepared Me for Bitcoin Starting Peony Lane meant leaning into something most people see as a downside. Waiting. Making red wine is slow. You invest into grapes, barrels, and labor, then wait two years before selling a single bottle. Most people hate that part. For me, it was the opportunity. The waiting gave me time to focus on what actually matters: making good wine. Since I didn’t have a product to sell yet, all I could do was learn. People act like it’s wild I learned so quickly while working full-time, but nothing motivates you like dumping your life savings into something and having to figure it out. One year in, I had a big test. You only get to make wine once a year. When that second fall came, I'd never sold a single bottle, but I had to decide how much wine to make. So I guessed. I figured I’d make a little more than the year before. Worst case, the wine would sit and get better with time. No harm in that. That became the rhythm. Not scaling up felt like more of a risk than scaling up too much. I never wanted to run out of wine to sell. And if I ever made too much, I’d just make less the next year. Simple. What I couldn’t do was go back and make more if I ran out. Eventually, that thinking becomes second nature. You stop looking at each vintage in isolation. Your baseline shifts to thinking two or three years ahead. When I found Bitcoin, the low time preference mindset clicked immediately. You can’t chase every short-term move. You have to zoom out. You trust that time and patience will reward conviction because you know the underlying product is sound. (Which, to be honest, is more than I could say about my wine back then.) So I went all in on Bitcoin at both tops of the 2021 cycle. It felt more risky to not buy bitcoin in the moment than the downside potential of being able to buy cheaper bitcoin in the future. If you can wait long enough, time heals all.

Where were you at the bottom of the bear market? I was making this. Things are good now And so is the wine 🍷🫡

Bitcoin attracts people from every walk of life The only real barrier to entry is curiosity. Curious people tend to be successful, so when you gather a bunch of curious people together, you get humbled fast. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met a random Bitcoiner only to realize they were way ahead of me. Smarter. More Successful in business. Or just figured this all out 10 years before I did. I have been in countless conversations thinking, "Who the fuck am I? I’ve done nothing compared to this person, but for some reason they want to talk to me?" There's always a bitcoiner thats better than you at everything. For Example: Skiing has always been my thing. I am really fucking good and I rarely get to ski with people who push my limits. Being the best in my crew has been a source of ego for me for a long time. A few years ago, I went to the Bitcoin Ski Summit and as we broke into groups and the first one was labeled, “If you’re the best skier on the mountain, join this one.” I jumped right in. It was a powder day at Jackson Hole. I wasn't about to be polite waiting on some Jerry to go find their lost ski. The last person to join the group was some dude without a helmet. Jerry-ville for sure. Turns out the dude was an Olympic skier and I couldn't keep up even going 100%. Best Day Ever and I was honored when he defied the authorities to smuggle a bottle of my wine home to Canada. They say firewood warms you twice. Well, Bitcoin humbles you twice. First, by showing you the world does not work the way you thought. Then, by surrounding you with casually incredible people.

YOU CAN PAY FOR WINE WITH A ZAP??