Forty-five years ago this month, MTV came on the air. The very first video it played was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”—a song that seemed to announce the beginning of a new age. Radio was finished. Video was the future.
Except, of course, radio didn’t die.
Music changed. The way artists reached people changed. The business changed. But songs survived just fine.
Wine feels a little like it is having its August 1981 moment right now.
Nearly every week brings another article explaining what is supposedly killing wine. GLP-1 drugs. RTD cocktails. Neo-Prohibitionism. Expensive tasting-room fees. Overpriced bottles. Younger consumers. Cannabis. You name it.
Boil one of those down to three syllables, get The Buggles back together—they actually toured in 2023—and we could probably have ourselves a new anthem for the death of the wine business.
Morét and I just don’t buy the premise.
We don’t believe wine is dying.
We do believe wine needs to remember what made it special in the first place.
And, at a moment when so much of the wine business seems uncertain about its future, we thought it was worth telling you exactly what we believe.
First, there are no “winemaking stars.”
For a while, the wine world treated winemakers like rock stars. Critics helped create celebrity winemakers who traveled the globe consulting for wineries and whose names sometimes became bigger than the vineyards themselves. Morét and I even poked fun at the idea by releasing a comic book portraying ourselves as superheroes.
But we certainly aren’t stars.
The real stars are the grapes—and the farmers who grow them. They are the Franscionis, the Pisonis, Jim Pratt and so many others who spend an entire year working with Mother Nature in hopes of delivering us remarkable fruit.
Our job is not to make the grapes famous.
Our job is to make sure we don’t screw them up.
Second, wine is about people.
It is about those farmers and their families. It is about Mario and the vineyard crews who do the difficult work that most wine drinkers never see. It is about the people beside us in the cellar who help turn those grapes into wine.
And, ultimately, it is about you.
It is about opening a bottle at dinner. Pouring it for somebody you care about. Discovering something new together. Arguing over whether you taste cherries or raspberries and eventually deciding it doesn’t really matter because everyone is having another glass.
Wine has always tasted best when shared.
That may be the most important thing our industry needs to remember.
Third, when you buy our wine, you are buying it from us.
Morét and I are the two people responsible for these wines.
When you email, one of us answers. When you call, one of us picks up. We write these newsletters. We host the tastings. We make the wines. We pack plenty of the boxes. And when something goes wrong, we’re the ones you get to complain to.
For better or worse, there isn’t much corporate infrastructure standing between you and us.
We like it that way.
And finally, wine has gotten too expensive. Great wine doesn’t have to be.
We understand why people look at some of today’s wine prices and decide the whole thing has become ridiculous.
That’s one reason we make wines such as Stray Dogs, Dial Tone and Busy Signal—Pinot Noirs that we believe dramatically overdeliver for their price.
And when we do charge more—whether it is for Morét’s Sexton Vineyard Pinot Noir or my Clarice Pinot Noirs—it is because the farming is expensive, the barrels are expensive, the yields are small, and we have spared very little expense trying to make something truly exceptional.
Different wines can occupy different places at the table.
What matters is that every one of them feels worth what you paid for it.
So no, we don’t think GLP-1s killed the winemaking star.
We’re not convinced there ever should have been a winemaking star in the first place.
Wine may be changing. How people discover it, buy it and drink it may change too. We probably can’t rewind the wine business to some imagined golden age—and we shouldn’t try.
But we can go back to the basics.
Great grapes. Great farmers. Fair prices. Real people. Bottles meant to be opened rather than worshipped. And wine shared around a table with people you enjoy.
That is what made us fall in love with wine.
And that is what Morét and I intend to keep providing for you.
THE REAL STARS PACK
PURCHASE THE REAL STARS PACK HERE: THE REAL STARS PACK – Adam Lee Wine
Great wine starts with great farming.
As we mentioned before, winemakers tend to get most of the attention. We get our names on bottles, show up at dinners, pour the wines, and talk endlessly about what we did in the cellar.
But the truth is, none of it matters without extraordinary grapes.
And extraordinary grapes come from extraordinary farmers.
So we wanted to put together a special six-pack celebrating three of the real stars behind the wines we make.
THE FRANSCIONI FAMILY
Gary, Adam, Nick & Rosella Franscioni
The Franscioni family farms Rosella’s Vineyard near the northern end of the Santa Lucia Highlands, and it is one of the most remarkable vineyards we have ever worked with. Morét half jokes that the fruit comes in and it looks photoshopped because the clusters are so perfectly uniform.
Near harvest, the fruit can look almost unreal—as though someone carefully walked through the vineyard and placed every cluster perfectly on the vine.
That doesn’t happen by accident.
2 bottles — 2024 Clarice Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot Noir
97 POINTS — The Wine Palate
JIM PRATT
Sexton Vineyard · Russian River Valley
Jim Pratt has been farming Sexton Vineyard for more than two decades.
Adam first worked with Jim’s fruit years ago at Siduri Wines, where Sexton became a vineyard-designated Pinot Noir. Today, Morét gets to work with that same vineyard but different sections for her Sexton Vineyard Pinot Noir.
Jim is simply one of the finest farmers in the Russian River Valley—and this wine shows exactly why.
2 bottles — 2024 Morét-Brealynn Sexton Vineyard Pinot Noir
96 POINTS — The Wine Palate
JEAN-FRANÇOIS PALY
Lirac · Southern Rhône
Jean-François—or Jeff, as he kindly allows us Americans to call him—is the fifth generation of his family to farm this land in Lirac.
He tends 65-year-old Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Carignan vines planted in the famously rocky soils of the Southern Rhône.
We have had the privilege of working with some remarkable growers over the years, and Jean-François ranks among the very best, even at a young age, he is passionate about crafting the best fruit.
2 bottles — 2024 Etienne Essen Lirac
80% Grenache · 16% Syrah · 4% Carignan/Mourvèdre
93 POINTS — The Somm Journal
SIX BOTTLES. THREE GREAT FARMERS. ONE SPECIAL PACK.
These six bottles would regularly total $500 with taxes and shipping.
NOW JUST $350
Taxes and ground shipping included.
Available at this special price through August 21, 2026.
Raise a glass to the people who make everything we do possible.
PURCHASE THE REAL STARS PACK HERE: THE REAL STARS PACK – Adam Lee Wine