Ep 186 Who Gets Wine’s Attention? What Paso Can Teach Us – Featuring Wine Enthusiast’s Emily Saladino

🍇 Where Wine Takes You, Episode Highlights 🍷

This week, Adam sits down with Emily Saladino, wine and food writer, editor, recipe developer, wine columnist for The Washington Post, and writer-at-large for Wine Enthusiast.

The conversation starts with Emily’s Wine Enthusiast piece asking why Gen X a generation with serious spending power and years of wine experience, so often disappears from the industry conversation. From there, Adam and Emily take the question through a Paso Robles lens: What happens when wineries get so focused on finding the next customer that they stop noticing the loyal one who has been showing up for twenty years?

They also get into wine education, expertise without intimidation, trusting your own palate, the current slowdown in wine, language that welcomes people instead of shutting them out, and Emily’s wonderfully sharp description of wine as “beautifully inefficient.” The conversation ultimately becomes less about one generation and more about attention: who gets it, what deserves it, and what happens when we actually slow down enough to notice.

Later, our Travel Paso Spotlight hits the gravel with Bryan Yates, creator of The Bovine Classic. The seriously unserious cow-themed cycling weekend returns October 22–25, 2026, with the main ride on Saturday, October 24. Bryan and Adam talk gravel culture, North County terrain, the community around the event, and why riders come for the challenge but tend to stick around for the party.

EMILY SALADINO

Official Website:

https://www.emilysaladino.com/

Wine Enthusiast:

https://www.wineenthusiast.com/contributor/emily-saladino/

The Wine Industry Is Forgetting About an Important Generation:

https://www.wineenthusiast.com/culture/wine/gen-x-forgotten-wine/