A Report From Wine Explorer Diego Samper -Your taste evolves. Your instinct sharpens.
Sonoma, California
Three out of four people say they prefer old shows and movies over the new stuff on Netflix.
I’m one of them.
Makes sense. The new stuff tries so hard to impress. Just like some wines—deep purple from additives, wood chips tossed into fake barrel age. Manufactured complexity with no legacy behind it.
It checks boxes. But leaves you cold.
Not sure about you, but I’m tired of flash and filler.
Plates that look better in a photo than they taste on the table. Restaurants where the lighting isn’t even for you—it’s for the photo of your food.
Same goes for wine. Less branding. More substance.
That might be why you’re here. In this club.
We’ve said it before—we’re a small outfit. Nothing flashy. Just good wine, carefully chosen. Someone in the industry recently called us “a wine club for people with brains.”
We’ll take it.
Most of the wine world? Just moving bottles. Another label. Another barcode. Not a wine. Not a story.
But you—you’re still paying attention. You care what’s in the bottle. You drink with curiosity. With memory. With taste.
I’m in Sonoma this week.
The hills are golden yellow. The cheese is honest. The BBQ is smoky—slow smoky. You see the fire at 8 a.m. on your way out to the vineyards, knowing lunch will be waiting for you. The kind of meal you think about all morning.
You can’t rush food like that. You can’t fake it either.
Same thing with wine.
There’s this moment—right before you open the bottle—when something just clicks.
You know what you want. Maybe you can’t explain it, but your palate can.
That instinct gets sharper the more good wine you drink. One of the goals of this club is to give you wines that expand your palate. To challenge it. Surprise it. Build that inner compass.
But in the end, it’s your taste that decides. And that’s exactly how it should be.
It’s a bit like umami—that deep, savory taste first identified in Japan. It’s not a feeling or a guess—it’s a recognized flavor, alongside sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. You find it in broths, soy sauce, aged cheese, and slow-cooked meats.
Wine doesn’t technically have umami. But a great wine can light up the same part of your brain. It’s the sip that makes you pause. The bottle you think about weeks later. That subtle, lasting yes.
Taste buds regenerate every one to two weeks.
But it’s your memory, your attention, and your experience that shape how you taste. The more you notice, the more your palate evolves.
What once felt vague—“something red, something easy”—starts to become specific. Intuitive. Confident.
Drink better wine today, and you’re training your taste for tomorrow.
You start noticing things. Balance. Grip. Calm. You know when a wine is real—and when it’s trying too hard.
Even the big players are waking up.
Constellation Brands for example—a $30 billion drinks giant—is selling off its mass-market wines.
They’re shifting to serious bottles.
I see it as a signal. People are done being pandered to. We want the real thing. And we’re willing to wait for it. Pay for it. Savor it.
Maybe Constellation just figured out what you already knew: wine shouldn’t just be easy. It should be worth it.
And here’s the good news—there’s plenty of good wine out there.
I’ve tasted some of it this week. Bottles with backbone. Wines that weren’t trying to be “liked.” Wines that just… were.
We’ll be sharing them with you soon.
Until then, if something calls to you from your cellar tonight—listen to it. Trust your instinct.
It knows what it’s doing.
And if nothing calls?
Don’t worry.
You’ve got a shipment coming soon.
Diego Samper
P.S. If you’re looking to trust your instinct and try something different, explore our new Tacana Torrontés here.