One of the biggest misconceptions people have about wine is that the more you spend on a bottle, the better it will be. The truth is, there is astounding value to be discovered from wine regions around the world, and you can find great bottles for $20 or less. You just need to know where to look.

Wine Enthusiast's recently published 2025 Top 100 Best Buys list featured a high number of wines from Oregon. On this week's episode, Magazine Director Ryan Grim talks to WE Writer-at-Large Michael Alberty about why—and how—the state is churning out so many high-scoring, budget-friendly bottles. 

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In this week’s podcast episode, we sit down with Wine Enthusiast Writer-at-Large Emily Saladino to talk Trader Joe’s, Costco, Tyler, the Creator, and more.

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The way we talk about wine is important. Language is a living, evolving thing that changes to suit shifting whims and needs. That means that some wine terms become less, er, useful over time. In other words, they need to get the axe.

There are so many reasons a term could be considered outdated. It might be offensive—for instance, why are some wines described as "masculine" and others "feminine"? But terms may also not be precise enough, or not inclusive enough. Sometimes they just plain evoke weird reactions. 

So, too, thinks writer-at-Large Reggie Solomon, our reviewer for a wide range of wines including those from the Loire Valley, Beaujolais, Southern Coastal Spain, Israel, Asia, and more. I caught up with Solomon to talk through terms he considers outdated in wine writing and why. 

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Wine Enthusiast just released its 2025 Future 40 list, a celebration of emerging talents and tastemakers in the drinks space. On this week's podcast episode, Magazine Director Ryan Grim talks to Future 40 honorees Luke Anderson and Justine Osilla about the state of the wine industry.

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Academy Award-wining actress Regina King opens up about her new orange wine label, MianU, the bottles that made her fall in love with wine, how winemaking is like directing and all the ways she's continuing to celebrate with her son, Ian. 

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When The Bear first premiered, it was widely-hailed for accurately capturing the high-intensity chaos of restaurant life. With each new season, the show has dived deeper into the emotional complexities that come with working in the industry for characters who have made it their life’s work. But, for certain viewers, it felt like the show was missing a crucial component—wine—especially when talking about a restaurant that is aiming for a Michelin star.

On The Bear’s fourth season, which premiered on June 25th, wine finally got its time to shine. Though food remains the central focus of the restaurant, wine finally gets its fair share of airtime in multiple episodes this go around. 

In episode two, called “Soubise,” Gary “Sweeps” Woods, The Bear’s resident sommelier-in-training, meets with trailblazing former Master Sommelier and restaurateur Alpana Singh. Making a cameo as herself, the Chicago-based industry pro gives the burgeoning somm some hands-on tips.

For this week’s podcast, we invited both Singh and Corey Hendrix, the actor who plays “Sweeps,” on to talk about what it means to portray a wine pro on television, wine stereotypes and what real representation in wine media actually looks like.

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The siren call of a BuzzBall is hard to ignore. The neon sphere at your checkout counter is the $5 (or less) cocktail fueling a $500 million empire. In 2024, RTD sales spiked 16.5% while other booze categories stayed flat, and they show no signs of slowing down. 

In the wine world, XXL, the so-called “Moscato without manners” pushes the same boundary with candy-sweet flavors and 15–20% ABV, flipping the script on the sober-curious trend.

In this episode, resident spirits expert Kara Newman breaks down what’s driving the RTD boom, with a curated BuzzBallz tasting. Writer-at-large Reggie Solomon brings us a Wine Enthusiast first: a tasting note for BlowPop, plus tips for enjoying XXL—yes, even over your salad.

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The young people, it seems, are usually to blame.

In 1998, The New York Times said, “Young people, the 21- to 29-year-olds, are turning away from wine…For the $13-billion-a-year wine industry, the loss of so many potential consumers couldn't come at a worse time.”

In 2016, The New York Post ran a headline, “Millennials are ruining the American wine industry.”

Fast-forward to the current generational panic in the wine industry—this time, regarding the 13- to 29-year-olds that make up Generation Z.

The wine industry is currently facing a mountain of struggles, including shifting consumer preferences, oversupply in many regions, rising costs and tariffs along with a growing—and loud—anti-alcohol movement. Meanwhile, older generations, Baby Boomers specifically, are pulling back from their previous levels of wine consumption. 

So, why are the kids—half of whom are underage—getting all the blame yet again?

We invited Wine Enthusiast Contributor Kate Dingwall, who has been covering all the latest Gen Z research, along with Jess Druery, the Gen Z founder of playful wine brand Whiny Baby, onto the podcast to discuss what's actually going on with young people and wine.

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The May announcement of the first-ever American Pope, Leo XIV, still has the whole world buzzing. While Robert Francis Prevost’s hometown of Chicago has its own distinct wine and spirits culture (Malört, we’re looking at you), his move to Vatican City has landed him in the center of the biggest wine scene no one’s ever heard of.

That’s right: The Vatican has a wine scene—and a secretly influential one, too. Surrounded by Rome, the tiny city-state is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and homebase of the Pope. It’s also the biggest wine importer per capita in the entire world, as reported by news and website editor James Bayley of the Drinks Business—making it roughly double that of France and Italy.

We invited Bayley onto the podcast to discuss his recent deep-dive into how the Vatican became the world’s most surprising wine powerhouse, and what the future may hold for Vatican-made wine.

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Sonal Holland, India's first-ever master sommelier, had a feeling that wine would be big business on the subcontinent back when she first entered the wine scene nearly 20 years ago.

"I could see that it was going to grow, and there were no qualified wine professionals in the country," she tells us. "I don't think anyone was sitting there thinking, 'Oh, let's have an MW from India,'" she admits. "But somehow there was a voice inside of me that said, 'No, this, this can be something real.'"

That instinct turned out to be wildly accurate. Between 2023 and 2027, Euromonitor predicts an annual growth rate of 12% in wine consumption in India. That could translate to an industry worth $700 million by 2030.

Tune into this episode to hear more about wine's rise in India, and what it could mean for the global wine market.

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