No Name
Some songs take a while before I understand why I wrote them.
No Name started with a wine. Months later, I realized I had somehow written something about the path I was already taking.
The track was inspired by Borgogno No Name Langhe Nebbiolo, a wine I tasted earlier this year. The original idea was fairly simple: take what I was perceiving in the glass and see where those sensations went when translated into imagery and sound.
Zephyr through Stone
Blue Mountain’s Gravel Force Pinot Noir 2023 first caught me with its perfume: red cherry, lychee and potpourri over a concentrated, juicy core. Zephyr Through Stone came from that contrast, with fragrant wind revealing the structure underneath, then carrying the same idea into music. It is a taste that honours the land.
A SenArch Embodied Experiment
I came into cigars knowing very little about tobacco, construction, origins or technique, but I did not come in without a way to learn. I already knew how to slow down, notice change, compare experiences, sit with uncertainty and allow an impression to exist before I had the vocabulary to explain it. That seems to have allowed me to appreciate a completely unfamiliar medium much more deeply, and much sooner, than I expected.
空の羽 — Sora no Hane
Born from Martin’s Lane Hyland Vineyard Riesling 2024, 空の羽 — Sora no Hane transforms an unexpected vintage into a song about becoming stronger through change. A cold snap altered the wine’s path; botrytis gave it greater depth. From that tension emerged the image of a white dove in an open sky—and a bilingual song in which hardship becomes wind, scars become light, and Ava claims her moment to fly.
VinoZen SenArch Selection 2026
Tasting usually begins with language: fruit, flowers, oak, acidity, tannin, texture and finish.
But what happens after the tasting note?
What happens when acidity begins to feel like movement, texture suggests material, or a finish creates distance and time? What happens when a wine leaves behind an image that sounds absurd when described literally, yet somehow feels precise when you return to the glass?
The VinoZen SenArch Selection 2026 brings together 12 such encounters: four whites, four reds and four spirits.
They are not necessarily the most expensive or highest-scoring bottles I tasted. They are here because each one opened a door.
A Sauvignon Blanc became a swan. Riesling became refracted crystal. Chardonnay became a leopard waiting at the water's edge. Balasto became monumental stone. Clos Apalta became an entire living civilization. Grappa became breath rising through bamboo. Hibiki became what remains after the final note has disappeared.
These are not tasting notes replaced by fantasy.
They are attempts to follow perception one step further.
Tasters First
Wine knowledge is more accessible than ever, but access to information is not the same as desire. This piece argues that anyone holding a glass is already a taster—and that wine communication should begin with personal experience, emotion and curiosity before moving into scores, technique and theory.
Wine can move us like art
Analysis is not the problem. It should be neither the price of entry nor the end of the conversation.