In 2021 I had my heartbreak with wine education. I realised the system I loved was part of the problem. Too many rules. Too much superiority. A constant separation between those who “know” and those who “don’t”.

Somewhere along the way I became the kind of person I never wanted to be, judging people by how much theory they could repeat.

I still remember a cellar-door moment with a group of young women. No one wanted to host them. People laughed behind their backs about their questions.

One of them said she could not taste it because she was allergic to apples. I had just described the wine as having apple notes. Instead of meeting her where she was, we made her feel small. That memory still stings. Not because of her question, but because of our reaction.

These days I prioritise connection and curiosity. I don’t assume I’m there to teach. I ask what matters to them and how I can add value. Education should open doors, not close them. It should give people their own language for taste and embrace the questions that sit outside the rulebook.

That is why this month’s Vino Visionaries makes me proud. I sat down with Preston Mohr, Managing Director of Wine Scholar Guild, to talk about a new approach they are rolling out that puts the taster at the heart the equation. No right or wrong answers. No performance for the grade. The aim is to make wine more accessible and more inclusive.

For me, this is the future. We need to replace scripts with stories, scores with feelings, and hierarchy with hospitality.

I am excited to hear how this new Wine Scholar Guild pathway lands with the next generation of students and the many professionals who are ready for a change.

If you have ever felt shut out of wine by jargon, or if you teach and want your students to LIGHT UP rather than FREEZE UP, this episode is for you.

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📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries

🌐 Visit our website: ⁠https://www.rethinkingwine.app/⁠

👥Connect with Preston Mohr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preston-mohr-23459098/?originalSubdomain=fr

Blind tasting may help professionals strip away bias, but for consumers, bias is the reality.

I’ll never forget a lesson at the Escuela Argentina de Sommelier. Our teacher poured wine from a decanter, announcing: “This is the most expensive wine you will taste in this course.” Excitement buzzed around the room. Students began describing it with elaborate praise: “so elegant… refined… structured… the most beautiful wine I’ve ever tried.” Word after word piled on, each more glowing than the last.

And then came the reveal. It wasn’t a grand cru at all. It was cheap Tetra Pak wine, poured into a decanter. The room went silent. Everyone felt a little foolish. But the lesson was unforgettable: we hadn’t been tasting the liquid. We had been tasting the story.

Our guest Marco Baldocchi put it perfectly: “If you don’t put the value first and the price at the end, people are going to think you are so expensive.” Value, in other words, is not an absolute, it is PERCEPTION.

This is also what Rory Sutherland calls psycho-logic in his book Alchemy. Value lives in the “black box” of the human mind. A $30 bottle can feel like a waste of money or like a revelation depending entirely on how expectations are framed.

We can see the same truth outside wine. Consider the famous Coke vs. Pepsi study. When people tasted the sodas blind, preferences were split nearly 50–50. But when participants knew which brand they were drinking, Coke was strongly preferred. Brain scans revealed why: when the Coke brand was visible, regions linked to memory and emotion lit up. Pepsi didn’t trigger the same response. The taste hadn’t changed, but the story had, and that story rewired the brain’s experience of pleasure.

This is the same reason Coca-Cola’s “New Coke” experiment collapsed in the 1980s. Blind tests said people preferred the new formula. But without the emotional halo of classic Coke - the red can, the Christmas ads, the cultural symbolism - the product failed. Perception won over chemistry.

Wine is no different. Its “price” is just a number. Its “value” lives in the story, the context, and the expectation people bring to the glass. A pop of cork, a heavy bottle, a label that resonates, these elements build value before taste ever confirms it. As Marco said: “The important thing is how you let me feel.”

Consumers drink perception. And perception is value.The business equation is simple: Value – Price = Gain.

And that should make us ask: if wine is increasingly seen as old-fashioned, complicated, or disconnected from everyday life, what story is the majority really telling themselves about wine today?

Join our community, subscribe to the podcast today.
📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast

▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries

🌐 Visit our website: ⁠https://www.rethinkingwine.app/⁠

👥Connect with Marco Baldocchi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcobaldocchi/

⁠⁠#RethinkingWine⁠ ⁠#VinoVisionaries⁠ ⁠#WineReconnected⁠ ⁠#neuromarketing ⁠#FutureOfWine⁠ ⁠#VinoVisionaries⁠ ⁠#neuroscience ⁠ ⁠#Marcobaldocchi ⁠#WineCommunity⁠ ⁠#DecentralisingWine⁠ ⁠#WineForTheWorld

Did you know every time a hospitality business loses a staff member, it costs around $6,834? And with turnover sitting at 80%+ in some places, that number adds up fast. When I was working at Dan Murphy’s, I remember how frustrating it was trying to get my team to the next stage of training.Every time we’d start making progress, there’d be turnover. Someone would leave, a new person would come in, and we’d be right back at square one. It made everything slow down.And sometimes people jumped into hospitality with zero experience. No idea how to read customers, no idea how to handle a tricky situation, no idea about the small things that actually make people feel welcome. That’s when customers can have the wrong experience, and in hospitality, that can hurt a business fast.That’s why I love the idea of Knowbie. It doesn’t just throw information at staff, it helps them think. It gives them the confidence to make decisions and to deal with people. In this week’s Vino Visionaries, I sat down with Crystal Hamilton, the founder of Knowbie, to talk about how this platform is changing the way hospitality trains and retains its people.📲 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/vino_visionaries_podcast▶️ Explore more episodes on our YouTube channel: @vino_visionaries🌐 Visit our website: https://www.rethinkingwine.app/👥Connect with Crystal Hamilton: / crystal-hamilton-8ab50119

#RethinkingWine #VinoVisionaries #WineReconnected #WineWithoutWalls #FutureOfWine #VinoVisionaries #Knowbie #CrystalHamilton #WineCommunity #DecentralisingWine #WineForTheWorld