Ep. 072 Mike Beneduce - Beneduce Vineyards

📄 Show Summary

In this conversation, I sit down with Mike from Beneduce Vineyards — a winemaker shaped by family roots, land, and a grandmother's influence that still guides his work today. What unfolds is a rich exploration of passion, farming, and legacy, and how wine becomes more than a drink — it becomes story. Soil, weather, people, memory… bottled.

Together, we explore discover 5 things most people don’t know about wine — the things you won’t often hear in tasting rooms, marketing campaigns, or wine culture:

1. You don’t need wine vocabulary or expertise to enjoy wine.
Wine has been unintentionally gatekept for generations. Joy comes first — language comes later, if ever.

2. Vintage variation isn’t inconsistency — it’s identity.
Some wineries chase sameness. Here, the year matters. Weather writes chapters in the bottle.

3. Great wine doesn’t require Old World prestige.
Blind tastings change everything. Sometimes the best bottle is the one grown 30 minutes away.

4. Marketing sells wine — terroir makes wine.
Quality comes from the vineyard, not the label. Farming decisions carry more weight than PR.

5. Winemaking starts in the soil — long before stainless steel or oak.
Clone choices, canopy management, light vs. shade… flavor is grown, not manufactured.

We explore passion and risk, collaboration among wineries, the pursuit of craft over shortcuts, and the long-game mindset it takes to make wine meant to outlive the person who planted the vines. This episode is for wine lovers, growers, and anyone curious about how values + land shape what ends up in the glass.