Stop Wasting Your Wine

This week we open our gift wine series with Pighin Collio Pinot Grigio 2024. This is Italian Pinot Grigio with ambition. 14.5% ABV means it brings more power than you expect. We explore the Collio region in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where ponca soil, mountain air, and coastal warmth shape wines with edge and depth. This bottle shifts the narrative. It asks you to rethink the Pinot Grigio category. We...

Kicking off 2026, the Stop Wasting Your Wine team dives into the vibrant world of orange wine with a review of the Pierre and Antonin Petite Sauvage Orange Wine. Far from being just a passing fad, this 100% Souvignier Gris natural wine proves to be a bottle that perfectly balances high quality winemaking with an approachable price of $17 to $20. Throughout the episode, the hosts explore what truly...

Cheers to a spectacular wrap on 2025! In our final episode of the year, the "Stop Wasting Your Wine" crew is popping a bottle of Poema Brut Cava to ring in the new year without breaking the bank. At just $15, this traditional method sparkler from Spain brings the "tiny bubbles" and crisp acidity you crave for a celebration, but is it the best value we’ve found in our sparkling wine mini-series? Be...

Sparkling wine season rolls on and this week we pop open the Alta Vista Brut Rosé from Mendoza, Argentina. It is a tank method sparkling wine made from an unexpected blend of Malbec and Pinot Noir, and it lands right in the middle of holiday drinking season. On this episode, we talk about why bubbles take over this time of year and how easy it is to lose track of what you are pouring between famil...

Sparkling wine season is here, and we are kicking it off with one of our favorite styles for everyday bubbles. This episode dives into Crémant and puts the focus on Bouvet Ladubay Crémant de Loire, a Loire Valley sparkling wine that delivers serious quality without the Champagne level price tag. This week, we talk about why Crémant is such a smart value play, how it compares to Champagne, and what...

This week the Wine Guides step into the world of Port and discover how deep this style really goes. Colin, Aaron, and Joel taste Fonseca Bin 27 and Taylor Fladgate 20 Year Tawny side by side. The shift from bold fruit to warm caramel sparks real reactions and a few childhood flashbacks. They break down what makes Port a fortified wine from the Douro Valley, why the British shaped its history, and...

Adam Wolf is back, and he brings a whole new story with him. Since his last visit, he packed up his life in LA and moved to Oregon’s Willamette Valley to work at Saffron Fields. We talk about that jump, what pulled him into the region, and how different the wine world feels when you live inside it instead of tasting from a distance. Adam walks us through his new role, the tasting room culture, and...

Thanksgiving sets the stage, but the wine drives the mood. This episode follows the shift from classic family dinner to Friendsgiving energy and asks a simple question. What bottle actually earns its spot on the table? The hosts spotlight Castello de Titignano Turlo, a blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot from Umbria. They break down why this lesser talked about region delivers stea...

This week the crew kicks off a new Table Wine mini-series with a surprise twist. Joel, Aaron, and Colin open not one but two bottles from Bollini: a 2024 Pinot Grigio and a 2023 Merlot. The goal is simple. Find affordable, crowd friendly wines you can set on the holiday table without overthinking a thing. The trio talks through what makes a true table wine, why ABV matters more than you think, and...

This week we sat down with Antonin Bonnet from Pierre and Antonin in the south of France for an eye opening episode. Antonin is a natural winemaker and he pulled back the curtain on how he and his partner Pierre think about and make wine without all the scary stuff people usually associate with natural bottles. We got into his wild start in New York, how he and Pierre built their winery from scrat...

This week on Stop Wasting Your Wine, we bring an exciting close to our Nebbiolo journey. We are diving into Barolo, the king of wines, and pouring the Priore Barolo 2021 from Cantine Povero. We look back at the bottles that led us here, compare Barolo with Barbaresco, and talk through what makes Nebbiolo so special. Expect honest thoughts on tannin, age, and why patience is part of the Barolo expe...

The Nebbiolo journey continues in Barbaresco as your Wine Guides pour Cantine Povero’s take on this iconic grape and explore what sets the region apart from Langhe and Barolo. The crew dives into how the Tanaro River shapes the wine’s character, the strict aging laws that define Barbaresco, and the legacy of Domizio Cavazza, the man who helped put the region on the map. Things wrap up with a round...

This week, your Wine Guides head back to Piedmont for the start of a new mini-series on Nebbiolo. The journey kicks off with the 2022 Langhe Nebbiolo from Cantine Povero. A $20 bottle that proves great wine doesn’t have to be expensive. Colin, Joel, and Aaron dig into what makes Langhe the “value heart” of Piedmont, explore the difference between DOC and DOCG wines, and share their first impressio...

This week, your wine guides flock to the 2022 Decoy Cabernet Sauvignon to find out if Duckhorn’s value label is truly worth the hype. The guys dig into what makes a “second label” wine, compare it to a TV dinner in the best possible way, and fire up a new round of their game “Viterations.” Expect a lighthearted look at flavor, structure, and value with a few good laughs along the way. Watch or lis...

Paige Comrie joins the Wine Guides—well, two of them anyway—for a cozy glass of Witch’s Brew Mulled Wine from Michigan, a $9 spiced red that started it all for her. Paige shares how this approachable bottle became her gateway into wine, leading from late-night study sessions with Wine for Dummies to earning her WSET Level 3 certification and becoming an influencer in the wine world. She talks abou...

The Wine Guides open their first Hungarian bottle with the Chateau Megyer Late Harvest Tokaji. Along the way they dig into what makes Tokaji one of the world’s great sweet wines, how late harvest differs from the famous Aszú style, and why noble rot is better than it sounds. This week's conversation mixes in stories from a night out in New York, thoughts on when dessert wine works at the table...

The Wine Guys return to Germany for their first German red on the show, the 2023 Gerd Anselmann Pfalz Dornfelder. What starts with jammy blackberries, blueberries, and plum on the nose quickly turns into one of the most unusual tasting experiences they have had all season. Freshness, juiciness, bitterness, and earth all fight for attention in a wine that feels like two different bottles in one sip...

This week we sit down with Daley Brennan of Vik Wines, whose path into the wine world is anything but ordinary. Born in the UK, educated in Paris, and once on track for a career in neuroscience, Daley’s journey shifted after a side job at a Paris bottle shop had him opening first-growth Bordeaux's. In our conversation, Daley talks about moving from academia into wine, navigating French and America...

This week, the guys pop open the 2021 Tenuta di Renieri Chianti Classico Riserva. A $25 bottle that James Suckling stamped with 95 points. The question, does that score really hold up? Along the way we dig into what separates Chianti Classico from the rest of Chianti, the rules behind Riserva and Gran Riserva, and why the black rooster on the label actually matters. We also roll out our brand-new...

This week we crack open the 2021 Joel Gott 815 Cabernet Sauvignon, a bottle you can find just about anywhere. In this episode, we dive into what it means to take on “big brand week,” share our first impressions of a California Cab at this price point, and talk through where it lands in our wine ranking system. Along the way, we swap out the name of our learning segment, "wine nuggets”, for the muc...

This week we sit down with writer and storyteller Noah Chichester, the voice behind Wines of Galicia . Noah shares how a college job in a small wine shop set him on a path that led to teaching in Spain, falling in love with Albariño, and dedicating himself to telling the story of one of Spain’s most overlooked wine regions. We dive into what makes Galicia so distinct from the rest of Spain, from i...

Can a bottle of Cannonau really hold the secret to living longer? We’re not sure, but we can tell you what we thought of this one! This week the guys open the 2022 Dolia Cannonau di Sardegna. A red wine from the island that’s famous not only for its beauty but also for being one of the world’s Blue Zones, where people live longer than almost anywhere else. At just $17 and packing 14% alcohol, it h...

This week we’re joined by our friend Ashwin Muthiah from the unPINNED Wine Course and the newly launched unPINNED Wine Club. We talk about why wine education can feel too rigid, how rating systems miss the mark, and why genuine joy is key to building trust and community in today’s wine world. Ashwin also shares what inspired him to start the wine club and his passion for exploring the other 10,000...

This week, the Stop Wasting Your Wine crew sits down with Antonio Motta, co-founder of Bom Dia Brazilian Bubbles. We dig into Antonio’s unexpected journey from selling lanyards to hand-delivering sparkling wine across New York City. He shares what makes Brazil’s southern wine region so ideal for bubbles, why the brand chose cans as well as bottles, and his mission to create a new wine category: Br...

We’re back with another wine review, and this time we tackle the 2023 Amici Sonoma Coast Chardonnay. It’s our two-year anniversary episode, and we’re diving into a white wine that might just surprise even the most reluctant Chardonnay drinkers. In this episode, we unpack why region matters, explore what makes the Sonoma Coast and its wines so special, watch Colin try to defend his unbeaten streak...