Wine doesn't need another critic.
It needs someone willing to tell the truth.
For people who care more about stories than scores.
Every Wednesday at 4:00 PM, a story worth opening a bottle for.
The next issue lands Wednesday at 4:00 PM.
What readers are saying
"The only wine newsletter I actually read."
— ATWS Reader
"Makes me think about wine completely differently."
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"This is the first wine writing that actually sounds like a real person."
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New here?
Read these first.
This isn't another wine newsletter.
Most wine writing teaches you how to identify blackberry, cedar, and tobacco. The No B.S. Wine Letter asks a different question.
Why do some bottles stay with us long after they're empty?
Because wine has always been about people. Not points.
Latest Essay
They saved that bottle for ten years. By the time they opened it, neither of them were the people who bought it. The wine changed. So did they. Nobody said anything about that.
Read the essay →Field Notes
Real bottles. Three nights. No performance.
The applied practice. How a wine actually behaves over three nights — no food pairing, no decanting, no borrowed language. Just what's in the glass.
Read Field Notes →The Fiction
Viña Fantasma
A serialized novel where wine, memory, and mystery collide. West Texas, 1981. A vineyard on the edge of losing everything. Subscribers follow the story as it's written.
Read Chapter One →
The List of 1855
Bordeaux, 1855. The classification that still governs the wine world today, told from inside the room where it was decided. A clerk. A wall. The list already written before anyone arrived.
Read Episode I →
Hi, I'm Jake.
I don't believe wine needs more experts. I think it needs more people willing to tell the truth about why we gather around a bottle in the first place.
That's why I started The No B.S. Wine Letter.
Read the full story →