Changes to the Mas Vino Please Newsletter!

Pls Read!!

Okay that second part was a little click bait-y lol. I should have said: “Read this if you feel like it, no pressure!” But I am making some (good) changes to this newsletter!

I started Mas Vino Please: The Newsletter back in 2021 (wow) as an extension to the MVP Tiktok & Instagram and to bring myself back to the thing I love most: writing. I really thought I would be writing into the void, but apparently not— literally thousands of you have subscribed and supported (and even pledged monetary support! Which is incredible, thank you!). From this newsletter, Mas Vino Please: The Podcast was also birthed (season 2 in the works and on the way, I promise!). And as much as I love writing longer format opinion pieces, or rants, as I call them, I’m finding it hard to keep up.

Sometimes there’s a lot to say and not enough time to say it. Other times, I’ve got nothin; which, by my use of paranthesis is shocking because I’m regularly going on tangents. All of this results in a rather inconsistent newsletter for y’all, which according to my stats is the reason why a couple of folks unsubscribed (yes, I can see who you are, why you bailed and when!).

So rather than this blog-style format, the newsletter will be structured more like… well… a newsletter. There will still be a little section for me to rant or drop some personal thoughts (think: Letter From the Editor a la Anna Wintour) but I’ll also be leaving you with nuggets of wine things that I think you’ll appreciate (remember when I did the MVP Wine Picks?)! This means the Mas Vino Please newsletter will drop in your inbox each week with something for you to take away from it. All of this feels like more consistent and valuable information for you all, which I think will also result in less patchy newsletter deliveries!

So here we go! Scroll down and explore the new Mas Vino Please newsletter. Enjoy. xo

Wines I've been drinking this week

Greek Orange Wine: Pleiades by Papras Bio — made with Roditis grape, indigenous to Greece, 21 days on the skins grown near Mount Olympus! Pretty neat. Super aromatic, a little salty and minerally. Papras Bio is a family run winery, who’s vineyard was one of the first in Greece to be certified organic.

What I ate & what I drank with it

Spicy Italian sausage (from Autonomy Farms) and Weiser Family Farm peppers + Ori Marani Nita (rustic, savory red wine from an indigenous Georgian grape: Sapervi). Lots of white and black pepper notes in this wine. Someone on Tiktok told me they open a bottle of Georgian wine for Christmas dinner each year, and I think I’m going to start that tradition at my house too!

Wine bar you should know about

Pink Moon Bar, North Carolina. This bar has big Mas Vino energy and I love it: The wines are top tier, the instagram is a little chaotic, there’s always a pack of cigs laying around. I know I’m gonna feel right at home when I’m there.

Wine Links

Delta is revamping their in-flight wine program with some ‘premium wines’. The airline will include “brands that are sustainability leaders in their space; black-owned wineries; women winemakers and small businesses”. Just in time for my flight later this month! In case you missed it, I reviewed my in-flight wine on the way to Spain and I’m ready to continue that series.

Wine Term You Should Know

“Minerality”. Honestly, this is a term I hear used a lot and I’ve never really quite wrapped my head around what it means— the definition is debated and it’s a bit subjective— and it’s not even a word in English because I keep getting a red squiggle under it when I write… but here’s what I’ve gathered:

Minerality refers to the taste experience of minerals in wine, such as: wet stone, shells, saline, slate, chalk, graphite, etc. Specifically, any notes that cannot be categorized as fruit, spice, or vegetal adjacent.

Some also believe that minerality refers to the organic material that makes up soil in different regions (like fossils, limestone, slate etc). I’m not a geologist, but many people argue that its impossible these types of things in soil affect the overall flavor profile of a wine.