2025: What's In and What's Out

[MUSIC] Well, hello and welcome to the Wine Access Unfiltered Podcast. It is our first show of the year 2025. If you are joining us in the moment, happy new year to you. And if you're joining us a little later on, well, this is going to be a fun show for you because this is a show in which we are going through what is in and what is out in 2025. So if you're joining us in real time, let's have a little fun, sort of hypothesizing what's going to be going on in the wine world for the next year. And if you're joining us later, well, you get to see if we were right. If you have been doom scrolling like I have, you have seen the countless amounts of Instagram posts around this particular topic, what's in and what's out. But what you haven't really seen or what I haven't really seen is explanations for it, contextualizing for it, information around why something is in and why something is out. And so this entire episode is going to be dedicated to that, to me, not gatekeeping, to giving you all of the information you need, you deserve, you want. And I'm doing it here solo for this episode. So if you were joining us and you've got the wine in hand for this episode because you're part of the Wine Access and Filter Bocke S Wine Club, the wine you should have is the 2020 Hudson Cabernet Sovingone from Napa Valley. We'll be going over that and drinking it in just a second. I've also pulled the audience to find out what you guys think is in and what's out for 2025. So I'm curious to see what you guys think after this show. We're right. We're wrong. If you have any follow up thoughts, you can always find us on Instagram and our DMs and you're always welcome. As always, to leave us a comment, leave us a review, let us know how you're liking it. This show is of course available via the normal audio format, but it's also available on YouTube. So if you are listening to this show and you want to hop over and see my face and get a little more context for what we're talking about, you can hop over there and hang out. So without any further ado, let's jump into what is out for 2024. Number one, this was kind of a fun thing that I learned in 2024. I did not have it on my bingo card, but we learned that you do not need to store wine on its side. So what is out for 2024 is only storing wine on its side. I spent a lot of time with the Amoram team in this past year. I learned a ton from them. They are one of the biggest, if not the biggest producer of Quirk in the world. And it was really interesting because I not only spent time with them, I also traveled to Portugal. I saw the Quirk harvest. You can also catch the episode that I did with PJ All from the Amoram team. We talked at length about all things Quirk. It was fascinating. I loved our conversation, but there were a few really important takeaways from that. The first being, you actually don't need to store wine on its side. It is not necessary to preserve the Quirk. Earlier, thoughts suggested that in order for the Quirk to remain intact, in order for it to not dry out, the wine had to physically be in contact. Which is a huge part of the reason why we were storing wine on its side. Turns out Dr. Miguel Cabral, who has done a ton of research on the subject, he came out and said, actually, there is 100% humidity between the Quirk and the wine in the neck of the bottle. Therefore, there really is no benefit to storing your wine on its side, unless you want, as PJ pointed out, that red color. Or if you want a little more space in your wine cellar. So, whereby no means telling you don't store it on its side, but feeling like you have to store it on its side is definitely out for 2025. The other thing that I want to talk about, which brings me to point number two, what is out for 2025? Not starting a wine collection due to lack of space or a wine fridge. There are two primary rules you need to adhere to when it comes to storing wine. Number one, you wanted a way from light. You do not want it anywhere where it's going to be in direct contact with the sun. You kind of want to treat it like skin, right? We don't want any of that exposure to it. Light strike on wine is a very real thing. So, if you are storing it right now in front of a window, in front of a door, that is not the place to be storing your wine. And number two, you want it to be cool, but more importantly, you want it to be a consistent temperature. This is where I see people get tripped up on this. You don't have to have a wine fridge. You don't have to keep your wine at 55 degrees. Is it more ideal? 100%. It's going to age at a slower rate when it's colder, but what wine prefers even more than that is a consistent temperature. So, my point to all of this is, if you can afford a wine fridge, great, do it. But don't let that stop you from starting your wine collection, because there are plenty of other ways to store your wine. Going back to my previous point, it doesn't have to lay on its side, which means when you get that shipment from wine access, when it comes in the box, if you want to just leave it in the box, slide it under your bed, tuck it away in the closet, store it in the basement somewhere, that's totally fine. The two rules you need to live by are away from light and cool, but consistent temperature. So, if you were storing it in your kitchen, where the temperature is going to be variable, it's going to go up, it's going to go down, that's not so great. But maybe in your bedroom, under your bed, that's a more consistent temperature. Maybe in a closet where there's no vent and no heat coming out, that's a good option too. Right behind me, in my room, I've got this great little understairs closet that I've sort of turned into an extra wine storage place. That's a perfect place to store your bottles. So, start with something. You know, whether it's three bottles or six bottles, I started mine with a six bottle wine fridge that my roommate bought me from Home Goods. I still have it to this day. It was the thing that really kicked off my wine collection, but you don't have to do that. And I will also point out that I recently found a pretty good reasonable priced one. It's a counter top one from my enthusiast. I think it was like 138 bucks on Amazon. It holds six bottles. It's pretty awesome. So, it's not a huge investment. But don't let it stop you from starting your wine collection. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how young you are. And it also really doesn't matter space wise. I would just love to see in 2025, all of you just getting into it, starting your wine collection and getting really excited about that. Number three, I feel like I learned this way too late in life. But number three is not drinking the quote unquote good wine because you don't want to open the whole bottle. In a world where so many great wine preservation options exist, there really is no excuse for exclusively saving those good bottles for special occasions. And for when someone else wants to drink it with you, it's perfectly acceptable to just crack the bottle. And if you don't feel like you want to get into the whole bottle, that's mine too because we have things like Coravin. We have things like report wine savers. So I'm going to go over some of the options that you can utilize if you want to take on this idea of just opening wine when it feels right for you. I have to tell you over the past year, I had so many great nights pulling great wines from my wine fridge, even when my fiance is not home, sticking a Coravin and having a glass of wine all in making dinner. It makes me so happy. It brings me so much joy. And I want to see more people doing that in this upcoming year. So a Coravin is a great place to start if you haven't seen this device before. For me, this is a bit of a game changer. This is a device that effectively just puts a needle inside of the cork. You don't actually remove the cork. The needle basically pulls up the wine. You pour it into the glass. It replaces the displaced wine with argon gas, which is a neutral gas that is heavier than oxygen. So we're limiting the exposure to the wine with oxygen. And then you have a glass of wine that is not only delicious, but you also have a bottle of wine that will stay fresh for months after that. The other beautiful part of this all is, when you go to put that wine back wherever it was, the cork is not going to be sticking out of it, which means it's not going to get knocked around in your fridge. The cork is not going to fall out of it. You can store it on its side. You can store it on its side down. The cork is completely intact and unaffected. I can't tell you how many people have come back to me after seeing the cork of an gond, "Oh my god, where has this been my whole life?" And I agree. I love the cork that I'm a huge fan. Some of you who messaged me about which version of the devices are great. Honestly, all of the timeless models are wonderful. They all basically do the same thing. Actually, they all do exactly the same thing. It's just like the timeless six is a little bit more stealthy than the timeless three. The timeless 11, I think is Bluetooth enabled. I personally have the six plus at home, but if the time was three is what you can afford, that's totally fine. They also have the pivot, which is kind of cool. It's a very different system, but similar technology. You're physically removing the cork from that one. And then you're actually putting in a synthetic plastic stopper. You can see the whole thing in another video. Anyway, that's going to get you a few weeks instead of a few months. So if you feel like you don't want to make the 200 plus investment on the Corovan, you can go to the Corovan pivot, which is about $100. The other thing you can do is re-pore wine savers are fantastic. These are basically little stoppers that go in the top of the bottle. There is these silicone things that absorb the off-road. from the bottle. I've had great success with these. These guys will help preserve your wine for about three to four weeks. I like to keep it in the fridge, but you don't have to. And then the other thing that you can do, if you don't have any of this stuff, if you're just like, I just want to enjoy my wine over the course of a few days, get the cork back in there as soon as humanly possible, and get it in the fridge. Friendly reminder that the reason that wine goes bad over a period of time is because it's oxidizing. And so oxidizing is a chemical reaction that could be controlled through temperature. When we heat it up, it's going to go faster. When we cool it down, it's going to go slower. So if you put that bottle of wine in the fridge, you're going to limit the rate at which your wine is oxidizing. Science, so exciting, right? I'll also throw a few other ideas up there that are even less expensive than the corvain and the report is if you want something that is just something you can stick in there. That's not the cork as well. Number four, that is out for 2025. This might be a little controversial. I know some of you do it and it's okay, I'm not judging you. It's fine. I actually made a video on this in 2024. Number four is asking for a dry wine. Now, no shade to any of you who are doing this. You're going into a restaurant. You're going to a wine shop and you're saying, I really like a dry white wine or I really like a dry red wine. I get why you're saying that. I hear you, but here's the deal. There's two reasons why we have to stop saying that. Number one, 98 percent, that's anecdotal, by the way, about 98 percent of the wine that we're interacting with restaurants at wine shops. Those wines are in fact dry, meaning free from residual sugar. I'll back up and tell you that in the wine world, dry means it has no residual sugar. Why is that the case? Well, let's talk about how wine is made in the first place. We're starting with grapes which have sugar in it. It goes through fermentation. Yeast consumes the sugar and what we are left with is alcohol. Now, most of the wines out there, they're going to allow that yeast consume all of the sugar and it's going to be a dry wine. That's what you're going to enjoy at a restaurant or at a retail shop or whatever, where were you getting wine? In the wine club here, right? Most wines that we're getting are free from our ass. When you ask for a dry wine, it's not really helpful to scripture. Are there some wines that have residual sugar in them? Absolutely. But it's not a lot of them and it's generally the cheap stuff and most of the time we're not totally aware of it. And number two, if you're asking for a dry red wine, chances are what you're actually meaning to say is I want something that has a little more tan in that viewing of dryness in it. So just something to be aware of in 2025. Again, I'm not judging. Whatever you choose to say is wonderful for you, but I feel like we're at a point in our relationship where I can say these things to you without you getting offended. I would eliminate dry from your vocabulary. If you want something that sweet, go ahead and say that. But try mostly unnecessary and I think we can get rid of it for 2025. Although I am going to have a little caveat to that when I get to my ins. But before I get to my ins for 2025, this is your reminder to go down to the description below and click on the link that says, join the wine club, the podcast wine club. We have a wine club affiliated with the show, four bottles that I select that comes to you about every other month and that correspond with an episode of this podcast. So every wine corresponds with an episode. They also come with tasting videos that I do so you can actually taste along with us. I loved seeing how many of you were gifted this for the holidays by friends and loved ones. It was so awesome to see. And so if you are new to our show, new to the wine club, welcome. I love having you here. So that brings me to our ins. What is in for 2025? I hold the audience and a lot of you are on the same page as I am and that is affordable, well made wine. I think that there is about to be a little bit of a turning point. I could be wrong here. I hope that I'm not. But I say that because the wine world is in a very interesting place. If you've been following the news, you've been seeing that sales are down, people are drinking less blah blah blah. I have my own thoughts around that. But what I can say is that for certain pockets of wine, yeah, sales are down. People are not spending the money that they use to spend on wine and more specifically on premium wine. In fact, distributors in some cases are reporting that their sales are down for on-premise meaning to restaurants that would sell those wines where people would drink them on the premises. Those sales are down to those restaurants for the super premium north of 30 to 40%. That is a very, very high number. And I think what that tells us is we could be seeing a little bit of a shift in terms of pricing. It could be that we're going to be seeing a shift in terms of what people are discounting, what people are willing to do. So for me, what I want to see is not only wines at better prices, but I also want to see great deals. And that's what we've brought for you today. This is the 2020 Hudson Cabernet something on from Napa Valley. Not a place that is usually synonymous with a great deal. I will I will definitely fully admit. But this was a great deal. This is a wine that is I don't even think any longer available. I think it was only really available for the wine club with a handful of other bottles are available outside of that. If you are not familiar with Hudson, you've probably driven by it. If you've been to Oxbow Market in downtown Napa, you've probably seen Hudson greens and goods. This is the same Hudson ranch. And what's really cool is Hudson's actually been around since the 1980s. It's owned by Lee and Christina Hudson. Lee is a farmer. He's a rancher. He's got kind of a big personality, but he's got a huge property in which he grows not only grapes, but also lots of vegetables. He farms animals. And what's really interesting is that he is a man that people want to be friends with in Napa Valley because the Hudson fruit is some of the most coveted fruit in the entire region. If you've heard of wines like Kong's Guard, Kisler, Arietta, O'Bare, those producers, which are very expensive and very hard to get, they rely on his site on the Hudson Carnarose Ranch. What happened with this wine? Because if you've been following this podcast at all, you know that Carnarose, which is in the southernmost part of Napa Valley, it actually is in tandem with Sonoma. If you see it at the bottom, they share a border. It crosses over into Sonoma we're talking about the Napa Valley side. Carnarose is not typically a place for cavities to hang on. It's more known for Shardinay and Pino. So it speaks volumes when someone like Lee Hudson goes outside of their own property lines to get fruit for their own wine, which is what is happening in this class here. This fruit is not coming from Carnarose. In fact, it is coming from an NDA protected site from quote, "A friend hives the mountains of Napa Valley, actually a famous vineyard in a mountain avia of Napa." Here's what I'll say. I don't know where this wine came from, but do I have thoughts? I sure do. And I have thoughts because I know who people are friends with. Napa Valley is not that big. It's a small place. You kind of know who clicks with you. And if I had to guess, I know where this site is. And I'd say based on that alone, based on smelling it, based on tasting it. This is a pretty spectacular bottle that we are getting for such a deal. I'm so excited that we got to include this in the club shipment because this never happens. Let's start with how this wine smells and how it tastes. Number one, I mean, it is mountain cab through when through if you're smelling this with me. You should be getting tons of boys in Mary in Cassee's, but you're also getting something incredibly dark, something that feels very brambley, but also that feels kind of like tree bark, leather, saddle, all of those things that give me mountain energy, all of those things that tell me, this is from a site where the grapes got really nice thick skins where the vines went super deep into the ground. And it's also a site where the grapes got intense concentration. And that's really just what you're smelling right now. As we taste it, it is rich, it's robust, it's intense, it is beautifully beautifully made. I mean, this has all the finesse of a 150 to $200 Napa Valley Cabernet. It is balanced. It's perfection. I was super, super jazz to be able to include this because this is not a wine that when you taste it, you're like, yeah, I could see this being $30, $40 bottle. It's just not that wine. This is a wine that definitely screams really expensive, something that you're going to save for a special occasion. And a perfect way to kick off this idea that there are deals to be had. There are wines that we are finding for incredible prices that are being really, really well made. And this is definitely definitely one of them. If you're enjoying this with me or if you're thinking about opening this, go ahead and decant it. I know that I'm not someone that normally advocates for heavy decanting, but you know what? This one has a lot of structures. it has a lot of tan in. So my advice to you is go ahead and decant it for like 15, 20 minutes or so. Get it nice and open. You can also let this wine age a little bit as well. If you want, I wouldn't go super, super long, but let it open in glass if you're going to, if you don't want to decant it, beyond that is delicious as is. And I'm always an advocate for eating with your wine. So make sure you have a snack with it. It is the winter months. One of my favorite things to do in the winter months is a glass of Napa Cab and Simpina Butter pretzels. I like the ones from Costco. You do whatever feels right for you, but that is an A+ pairing. All right, let's get into number two. What is in for 2025? I had such a great conversation. We have master some Leigh Ken Fredrickson who talked about this idea that restaurants should be offering multiple formats of wine outside of just glasses and bottles. And many said that I was like, yeah, that sounds great. They should be doing that. And then it dawned on me after that I had one of the most prolific, wonderful experiences with wine this past year at a very, very well known place called 67 Palm All. If you've ever been to London, you've had the opportunity to go to this private club. You've probably experienced their wine program, which allows you to select wines from a list that are available by the glass, by the half bottle. I think there was even like a three-quarter situation in their quarter situation. And then of course, by the bottle, it's an extensive, extensive collection. And they do this via the core of in wine program. And so what I would like to see in for 2025 are restaurants offering multiple formats for wine outside of glasses and bottles. Thank you very much, Ken Fredrickson for the inspiration on that one. I think it's brilliant. I had such a great time at 67 Palm All, drinking those wines, tasting lots of things, having some fun with wines I wouldn't normally get to experience. Now, of course, not every restaurant can do this. But again, going back to this idea that in an era where we have so many ways to preserve wines in really effective ways, this is a strategy that I think some ways and managers and owners of restaurants can implement. This is a way for people to start drinking wine or restaurants again. I mean, studies have shown that people are drinking more cocktails, they're drinking more beer, and they're not drinking as much wine at restaurants because it feels a little bit too committed for a bottle. People don't want to put down a full bottle at dinner on a Tuesday, which I fully understand. And they're not super jazzed about some of the by the glass selections that are available. So for all of those reasons and more, I am a huge fan and advocate for more of this in 2025. If you are a restaurant that is doing this, please let me know. I would love to shout you out on my Instagram on the wine access and filtered Instagram and let people know where they can do more of this. I think this is a positive change. It's a look toward the future for wine. And there's absolutely no reason that we can't all be taking advantage of what we have available to us in this day. So thank you to 67 Palm All, I had such a great time and shout out to the somebody who recognized me there, blinded me on a wine that I think I might have called Oregon Shard May, but that was in fact, burgundy. It was delicious. Thank you so much. Number three, again, this kind of goes back to my final point about dry and sugar. Number three is being open to wines that have residual sugar. This does include champagne. When sugar is used in the right way, it can be so effective and delicious. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Number one, we've talked about this in some of our sparkling wine episodes. When we're adding sugar, when we're adding the dosage to champagne, right? So when we're making champagne, we are basically starting with the still wine. We are fermenting it again to get those bubbles. And then at the very end of the aging process, we add what's called the dosage. And this can be anywhere from zero grams to however many grams you want of residual sugar in combination with some additional wine. And they do that not just to do it for fun, but they do it because one sugar is a flavor enhancer. It works in a very similar way to salt. And then it brings out aromas and flavors that you wouldn't normally get otherwise. It helps to enhance things. And number two, it's a texture enhancer. So anytime you feel wines that have a really lovely silkiness to them, a lot of times that's a product of sugar. And what's super cool is that I'm seeing more producers not really just making extra brewed champagnes, which are champagnes with a very, very low amount of residual sugar. I'm seeing more producers start to incorporate sugar in a very, in a way that makes me really excited because they're doing it in a way that enhances the wine and they're not just doing it for marketing purposes. For a long time, zero dosage extra brewed, those were all terms that some ladies really wanted to see. And I think it was a good thing because I think it allowed the pendulum to swing. But now we're kind of back in this middle ground where sugar is okay, not just in sparkling wine, but also in still wine. Let's not forget that some of the best reasonings out there, some of the best chen and blanx out there, they have some residual sugar. It is there for balance. It is there for texture. It is there for flavor. These are all wonderful things. And so what I would love to see is more people embrace wines with sugar. Good wines with sugar, not the bad stuff. We want the good wines with sugar. So if you're out there and you're thinking about maybe messing around with it, just know that this is a wonderful thing. This is a great way to enhance your meal. I've had so many great experiences with really spicy food that I'm pairing with wines that have a little bit of residual sugar. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with residual sugar when it's done in the right way. It's one of the most brilliant things out there. And so that's just sort of my petition to say, let's embrace it. Let's have a little more fun with champiains, with reasonings with chen and blanx with all of these wines that have residual sugar that's done in a very purposeful and wonderful, wonderful way. We will sing all that. Be featuring your reasoning coming up in our wine club shipment. That is bone dry. And there's nothing wrong with that. But this is just my sort of cry for sugar to have a moment again. It's not the bad word that we all think it is. Thing number four, getting into importers. If you caught our episode with Jonah and Sarah Beer of True North imports, we had such a great conversation. I got so many DMs and messages from you guys around how much you enjoyed that episode, how much you learned from that episode. And so what I would hope for you in 2025 is that we are going to be flipping our labels around of our European wines, taking note of the importers, getting more into seeing who is bringing these wines from point A to point B here in the States. And taking note of what it is we like about that. This is one of the best ways for wine drinkers to figure out what they like, get to know your importers, pay attention to it, take pictures of it, keep a catalog of it. This is actually one of the best ways to figure out what you like and what you don't like because it's not usually just one friddle of wine. It's not just usually one particular region. It's usually a lot of different regions. It's usually a lot of different producers that an importer is bringing in. So my wish for you was to start turning your bottles around on a more regular basis in 2025. So those are my four inns. I'm going to add one bonus one and that is traveling to lesser known wine regions. I have had such a great few years getting to places like the Finger Lakes, Michigan, Virginia. I went to the UK and the Venato this past year and it's really opened my eyes to places that I one normally would not have gone to but also wines that I would not normally try. I actually just opened a bottle of Cabernet-Franc from the Finger Lakes the other night from L'Amara landing and I had such a great experience with it and it reminded me that getting to these places is really the way that we broaden our horizons, the way that we open our palettes, the way that we see things a little bit different me and I think it's wine drinkers. We can all do more to step outside of our comfort zones by going to these places that we wouldn't normally get to. So that is my final five of what is in for 2025. At this point I want to just kind of go back to what you guys are talking about. What you're excited to see or hopefully not see in 2025. I saw Roar Champains. People want to see more Roar Champains. I feel the same way. I love Roar Champains. I love how Champains as well but Roar Champains if you love those smaller producers, the producers who are growing their own grapes and making their own Champains. That is wonderful. We saw a lot of comments around fancy glassware. We want to see better glassware at restaurants. I think there have been enough Instagram and TikTok videos to support that as well. A lot of great viral videos in 2024 are suggesting, hey, maybe we don't use the ugly clunky glassware that we used to use. Maybe we start stepping up our game a little bit. I love seeing all of the conversation around all of the other types of sparkling wine. Kava Kraman. Bubbles from Britain. A lot of people that were really excited about seeing bubbles from other places which makes me so happy because of course I love Champains. Champains is wonderful but we are living in the future where lots of sparkling wine is made in lots of other places. So we love seeing more of that. A lot of people hoping that shardin higgur kind of goes away. I don't know what I feel about that. I personally love Shardney. I think some people are hoping that the Oki or Shardney is the really big, but massive Shardney's go away. I think there's a place for those as well, but I hear you. I see you. And if that is your hope, then, you know, I wish that for you. We also saw a lot of love for Lambruisco in the comments, which again, just like other types of sparkling, Lambruisco. I hope to see more of as well. And then the other thing that we saw a lot of that a lot of you message me about was what is out. Flood, natural wine. A lot of you are hoping to see natural wine get a little bit more kick to the curb. Again, I think there's balance on all of this, right? I think like anything, like any trend in wine, there's going to be good and there's going to be that. I personally really love some natural wines, but not all of them are great. You're right. There's a lot of flawed ones out there. And so I would love to see producers of natural wine that are doing it in the right way, continue to be elevated. There are some great Instagram accounts out there. Superveno Brothers is one of them. Those guys are great. They've been on the podcast before talking about great natural wine producers. I hope to see natural wines continue to grow as a category and continue to grow for the better. I think this is a good thing. And last but certainly not least, kind of in the glass main drinking champagne out of a wine glass, not a flute. I mean, we've only been shouting it from the rooftops for the better part of the decade, but it feels like 2025 might be our year. It might be the time we start grabbing our zalto's or our tulip glasses, or whatever you have that's not a flute or a coop and just start pouring your bubbles in there and enjoying them because that is the way that we really enjoy great sparkling wine. We enjoy it out of a wine glass that allows you to smell the wine, to feel the wine more cohesively. It allows the wine to open and breathe because it is a wine at the end of the day. Bubbles are not just bubbles. There is a great bottle of still wine underneath of that. So I hope to see more of you embrace that. It's been such a fun 2024. I'm looking forward to what is ahead for 2025. And if you have any questions about what is ahead for this podcast about what is ahead for this podcast-moin club, feel free to leave them in the comments and me a DM. Let me know what's going on. As always, it is a pleasure to be your host on this show. And if you want more of what you're seeing, I hope to hear from you on Instagram. All right, for those of you who have been drinking with us, again, this is the 2020 Hudson Cabernet from Napa Valley. I hope you enjoyed it. Go ahead and check out the tasting video if you want more information on that over in the Wine Access YouTube channel. And until next time, see you guys soon. Cheers.