I get nervous, sip the wine

The rise of natural wine and buckling up for a wild 2025

I went through my brat phase embarrassingly late, ~5 months after most corporations:

But better late than never. I spent much of October developing a taste for Charli. A lyric that’s particularly stayed with me is “I look perfect for the background, I get nervous, sip the wine” from the below song:

The tone of that song and those lyrics do a lovely job capturing the tinges of anxiety that sometimes accompany a holiday party or a wedding reception where I don’t know anyone, drinking a nameless red wine and trying to lean against a wall in a way that seems effortless, iconic, and carefree (thank you to the Target social team for the verbiage).

Of course, wine is not only something you can sip when you’re nervous but something you can talk about, learn about, and use for social status. I’m interested in how things move in and out of fashion. Several months ago I analyzed trends in cocktails and I wanted to do the same thing with wine.

To begin with I asked my friend Will for his thoughts; he sells wine in Cincinnati and has worked in the industry for a long time:

The merlot reference is from Paul Giamatti’s impassioned speech in this unforgettable scene in the 2005 movie Sideways, which apparently depressed sales of merlot and boosted pinot noir.

The growth in non-alcoholic wine obviously fits into the broader trend moving away from alcohol, and it was interesting to hear that the category was down overall (luckily he is a good salesman).

I was surprised that he didn’t mention natural wine, because from my limited perspective that seems like by far the biggest thing to happen in wine the last few years in New York — natural wine is pervasive and if you go to a party in brooklyn it’s a virtual certainty that someone will whip a bottle that looks like this out of a tote bag:

It seems to me like these trends are quite regional; when I lived in San Francisco in 2021 it was hard to find natural wine like this, even though it was already very popular in new york.

Looking at how often the New York Times mentions different styles & grapes seems like a decent proxy for its adoption in the city, and in the past few years it’s interesting to see how frequently referenced natural wine has become relative to many of the most popular styles and varietals:

Looking at the relative frequency of a few of these more broadly over time, we can see the very rapid growth in natural wine mentions, as well as merlot’s descent (and possible rebound):

I enjoyed this article, Is Wine Cheugy?, from wine journalist Kate Dingwall, which posits that the category outside of natural wine has become inaccessible and uncool to young people:

I recently asked my 25-year-old sister who she thought of when she thought of wine. I expected the common tropes—Barolo-sipping Wall Streeters and stuffy Septuagenarians sitting on a cellar of Château Lafite.

“Wine moms,” she said, flatly. “The suburban Millennial ones, who do yoga and need their mom juice.”

I hadn’t considered this angle, but it makes a lot of sense. Legacy wines are associated with a demographic that is no longer cool.

It seems like each new generation needs some way to make wine accessible, an entry point that differentiates it from the stuff that the older generation is drinking, both on price point and aesthetic. For millennials it was companies like Prisoner and Josh and before that Yellow Tail, and for at least some section of Gen Z it is natural wine.

This millennial, who still thinks wine is cool, will spend an evening giving merlot another chance while listening to Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, and fantasizing about opening a playful-yet-elegant natural wine bar in Cincinnati to cash in on the inevitable craze.

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A couple of books I’m enjoying now — let me know if you’ve read them!

• I’m currently reading 100 Years of Solitude which is bizarre and mystical and just as good as promised. It’s pulled me into its world, and made me want to go to Colombia.

• I’m listening to The Surrender Experiment, by Michael Singer, which was highly recommended by several people I admire. Singer has a remarkable background: he was an economics PhD student in the 70s before becoming very serious about meditation and moved into the woods to practice in solitude. As part of the practice he decided to open himself up to the flow of life instead of trying to shape it according to his preferences, which leads to all kinds of serendipity including starting a software company and growing rich. I recommend it if you’re interested in meditation.

For tech and business, I really liked

Katelyn Donnelly

’s recent post in her excellent newsletter. And each new year I look forward to Fred Wilson’s recaps and predictions for the coming year. Fred concludes with "buckle up, 2025 is going to be wild.” He is not prone to hyperbole.

I hope you have a good beginning to the year, and thanks for being here!