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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👥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?

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⁠⁠#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

This might be uncomfortable. But it needs to be said.

We’ve been clinging to the health narrative as if it’s the wine industry’s biggest enemy.

But wine sales were already declining before the latest round of alcohol-and-cancer headlines. We’re focused on the wrong thing.

We’re treating symptoms, not the cause.If health campaigns were truly the problem, how do we explain this: The global e-cigarette and vape market was valued at USD 28.17 billion in 2023.

It’s expected to reach USD 182.84 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 30.6%. (Source: Grand View Research)

Is the health narrative really what’s holding wine back, or is that just the excuse we’re most comfortable with?

Even millennials like me never fully embraced wine. And Gen Z? They’re not avoiding wine because they’re afraid of dying. They’re avoiding it because it doesn’t feel alive. The rituals, the rules, the language, it hasn’t changed. And for most people, it just doesn’t resonate.

Every time the industry tries to “solve” the problem, we fall back on the same familiar prescriptions: more education, more moderation, more talk of “drinking less but better”. It’s all reactive. Defensive. Passive.The real issue? Wine stopped being cool.

This isn’t about calories. Or guidelines. It’s about culture.Look at cigarettes. Sales dropped, sure, but something else took their place. Vapes. Nicotine pouches. Sleek little devices you can carry in your pocket and puff like it’s candy. It’s not “better”, but it’s new. And that’s the difference.I was in Europe recently when a friend handed me a sleek, candy-coloured nicotine stick. I knew it wasn’t good for me. I used it anyway.

Why? Because it felt new. Effortless. Fun.Wine hasn’t felt like that in years. We keep recycling the same scripts: terroir, tradition, tasting notes. But heritage alone doesn’t create culture. Culture evolves. Culture listens. And right now, wine isn’t listening. It’s lecturing.Meanwhile, new drinks are connecting.

They’re simple. Casual. Relatable. They speak the language of today’s life, not yesterday’s legacy.And this is where we need to get honest: Perception drives reality.If wine is perceived as intimidating, rigid, or out of touch, that’s what it becomes.

And when I ask industry leaders how they plan to shift that perception, most don’t have an answer. Paul Mabray said it best: PEOPLE, PROCESS, SYSTEMS.

So maybe the question isn’t:How do we save wine from the health conversation? Maybe it’s:How do we make wine worth choosing again?

Because if nicotine can grow 30% year-on-year, with full knowledge of the risks, then the issue was never health. It was always relevance.

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#RethinkingWine #Paulmabray #rethinkingthewineindustry #winebusiness #winepodcast

I’ve been waiting to share this episode with you. Because this one is personal.

In 2021, I joined a wine marketing course at UC Davis. I was in Australia, pregnant (without knowing it yet), staying up through the night to join the lessons. And there he was, Paul Wagner, challenging everything I thought I knew.

At one point, he said something I couldn’t agree with:“Tasting rooms don’t need someone with deep wine knowledge. Most of the time, they bore the customers.”I remember literally raising my hand to disagree.I was proud of my knowledge.

I wanted to be taken seriously. And to be honest? I felt offended. But, that comment stuck with me. It lit a fire. Not because it was comfortable, but because it made me question. Why do we assume the customer wants a mini WSET lecture? Why do we act like knowledge alone makes us worthy of being listened to? Why did I feel I had to perform this “serious wine professional” role… even if it felt robotic?

Looking back now, I realise that moment changed everything for me. I started watching people differently.Noticing how they react when we talk about “production trivia”, how quickly their eyes glaze over, how often we lose the joy, the actual magic, in an effort to sound credible.

And a few years later… here I am, saying Paul’s words loudly on social media, laughing at myself for once resisting them. Paul Wagner helped change me. And for that, I’ll be forever grateful. Because sometimes, the people who challenge you the most are the ones who help you find your real voice.

Listen to our Vino Visionaries chat on Spotify: Or watch the full episode of Vino Visionaries on YouTube. Let me know what you think. Because the wine world won’t change just because we talk about it. It changes when we start asking better questions.

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👥Connect with Paul Wagner: https://www.paulwagnerwine.com/

#VinoVisionaries #RethinkingWine #YouAreNotTheMarket #WineMarketing #SocraticThinking #WineWithHeart #PaulWagner #HospitalityNotHierarchy

Sometimes it feels like if you’re not in a fine dining restaurant, reading from a thick wine list, then you’re not “allowed” to enjoy good wine.

But what if that mindset is the real barrier?

In this episode of Vino Visionaries, we explore what happens when wine is reimagined, not as a product for special occasions, but as a part of everyday life.

Not limited to rituals and rules, but open to real people, real places, and real emotions.

We talk about creating wines that feel fresh, consistent, and inclusive. Wines you can share with friends on the beach, at the park, or after a long day, without needing a script or permission.

The deeper reflection is this: Are we building the wine world we wish existed, or simply repeating what we were taught?

This isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about raising our awareness of who we’re really making wine for and who we might be leaving out.

The future of wine doesn’t need more gatekeepers.It needs more connection.

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👥Connect with Los Cuernos: https://loscuernos.com

#rethinkingwine #vinovisionaries #winewithoutwalls #everydayluxury #emotionoverritual #wineforpeople #loscuernos

We talk a lot about sustainability in the wine industry—organic vineyards, biodynamic rituals, carbon offsetting—but there's one elephant in the room no one wants to touch...The glass bottle.In our latest episode with Melissa Saunders MW, founder of Wine Queen, we peel back the label on everything we assume about packaging, quality, and tradition.Why bag-in-box has the lowest carbon footprint of all wine packaging. Why glass is not the symbol of quality we think it is. Why “recyclable” doesn’t always mean sustainable.Why tradition might be holding us back more than helping us grow. And why courage—not packaging—is the real issue.As Melissa says:“Initiating any kind of change can be scary… but if we stay afraid, then there’s stagnation. And that’s not exciting at all.”What do you think: Is the wine industry ready to #rethink the glass bottle? Can premium wine really come in a box? Or are we still too attached to traditional appearances?The latest new Vino Visionaries episode now live.

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#rethinkingthewineindustry #MelissaSaunders #MW #vinovisionaries #PriscillaHennekam #podcast #winepodcast #wineinnovation#RethinkingTheWineIndustry #Sustainability #PackagingMatters #WineInnovation #BagInBox

Breaking Wine’s Biggest Myth: Taste Is Not Objective

For centuries, the wine industry has operated under an unspoken rule: taste is universal. Winemakers, critics, and marketers have built an entire system around the idea that a wine can be defined by a set of fixed descriptors—flavours and aromas that every trained palate should perceive the same way. But what if that’s not true?

Katerina Axelsson, founder of Tastry, didn’t just create another product based on subjective tasting notes. Instead, she broke the very foundation of how wine is evaluated, marketed, and understood. Her work challenges the rigid belief that everyone should experience wine the same way.

The reality? Wine is not an objective product. Human perception is shaped by biology, culture, and experience, meaning no two people taste the same wine in the same way.

Yet, for decades, the industry has forced a narrow, standardized language onto consumers, making wine feel exclusive and intimidating. Axelsson’s breakthrough approach—combining chemistry, AI, and machine learning—proves that wine can be understood beyond traditional tasting notes.

By analysing the chemical makeup of wine and matching it with individual consumer preferences, she has shattered the notion that wine appreciation must conform to expert opinions.

This isn’t just a technological innovation; it’s a rebellion against the status quo. The industry has long catered to a small percentage of consumers while ignoring the 80% who don’t fit within the traditional tasting framework. By rejecting the one-size-fits-all model, Axelsson is proving that wine should be as diverse as the people who drink it.

So, if wine isn’t objective, why does the industry still act like it is? And if taste is personal, why is the industry so afraid to embrace individuality?

This conversation isn’t just about technology. It’s about dismantling outdated rules and giving wine back to the people.

It’s time to #rethink everything.

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👥Connect with Katerina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katerina-axelsson-a3888078/

#rethinkingthewineindustry #KaterinaAxelsson#vinovisionaries #PriscillaHennekam #podcast #winepodcast #wineinnovation