The Empty Booth at Suckling

The day I learned wine doesn’t need an audience.

The Suckling event in Miami is a particular kind of theater: bright lights, confident shoes, and grown adults swirling wine like it’s going to confess something if they stare hard enough.

Most of the crowd was parked at the big Bordeaux tables—bottles with reputations, names that make people straighten their posture. Phones out. Opinions delivered. Everyone trying to look like the kind of person who’s never been wrong about anything.

And then there was this one booth with nobody at it.

Empty. Quiet. Almost rude in how little it cared about being popular.

I went over because I hate lines and I don’t trust crowds. The guy poured me a glass. I took a sip.

And it hit me like a clean truth: not loud—clear.

It wasn’t trying to impress me. It wasn’t flexing. It wasn’t doing the whole “look at me, I’m important” routine. It just tasted like it knew what it wanted to be.

Rounded, but not soft. A little bitter, but in a way that felt intentional—like espresso, not punishment. No glitter. No costume jewelry. Just… sure of itself.

It also felt uncomfortably familiar.

A bit bitter, but clear. Rounded. Not a show-off. The kind of thing that doesn’t need the room to clap before it decides it’s good.

So I did the least glamorous thing possible at a wine fair: I called my sommelier.

“Am I crazy,” I asked, “or is this spectacular?”

He didn’t hesitate. “You’re correct.”

That sentence did something to me. Because here’s the part no one advertises: most wine culture isn’t built to help you taste. It’s built to help you avoid embarrassment.

So people buy the safe labels. They repeat the safe opinions. They chase the bottles that come with pre-installed confidence. And they confuse “famous” with “good,” because famous is easier to defend at dinner.

But that booth was empty. And the wine was great.

Which raises an annoying question: how many people walk past the best thing in the room because it doesn’t come with an audience?

That’s what Winery Confidential is about.

Not tasting notes as performance art. Not status games. Not pretending wine is only for people who can pronounce villages they’ve never visited.

It’s about drinking like a human. Trusting your mouth. Learning just enough to stop getting played.

And telling the truth about the industry when the truth is funnier than the brochure.

If you want wine without the costume, subscribe. I’m going to write one short post a week—stories, shortcuts, and the occasional hot take that the polite wine world would rather you not say out loud.

Next week: You Don’t Need a Better Palate, You Need a Better Compass — the simplest way to know what you’re tasting without turning into a robot.

P.S. The wine at the empty booth was Bibi Graetz Testamatta.