Wine is supposed to bring people together.
Holiday dinners. Date nights. Client gifts. Friends around the table. That one bottle someone has been saving for the right moment.
But for a lot of people, wine comes with a frustrating question: Why does something I enjoy not always agree with me?
In this episode of Is Anything Real?, Adam W. Barney sits down with David Meadows, PhD, and Derek Meadows of PureWine for a conversation about wine sensitivity, family invention, product innovation, holiday hosting, and what happens when a father-son team decides to redesign the wine experience from the glass up.
The myth: If wine doesn’t agree with you, your only options are to suffer through it or give it up completely.
The reality: Sometimes the ritual isn’t the problem. Sometimes the glass needs a better system.
David and Derek share the story behind PureWine, the company behind products like The Wand, The Wave, and The Phoenix: wine filtration tools designed to help reduce certain compounds in wine while preserving the ritual people love.
This is not a product demo disguised as a podcast.
It’s a founder story. A family story. A science-meets-real-life story.
And honestly, a very timely pre-holiday conversation for anyone thinking about hosting, gifting, gathering, or making wine night a little more enjoyable for more people at the table.
Adam, David, and Derek explore:
- The father-son story behind PureWine
- Why wine sensitivity is more common than people realize
- What may be hiding in the glass
- Why the wine ritual matters during holidays, dinners, and celebrations
- How PureWine thinks about filtration, enjoyment, and accessibility
- The difference between building a product and building trust
- What it takes to educate a market without overpromising
- Why science-backed consumer products need clear communication
- How a simple wine accessory can change the hosting experience
- Why “save wine night” is really about keeping people included in the ritual
The bigger takeaway: Wine isn’t the villain.
But if something you love keeps creating friction, it might be time to redesign the system around it.
This episode is for wine lovers, holiday hosts, product builders, founders, gift-givers, and anyone who has ever wondered whether there’s a better way to enjoy the rituals that bring people together. And use the code ABARNEY20 for 20% off your first order at PureWine: https://drinkpurewine.com/
Responsible note:
Enjoy responsibly. This conversation is educational and not medical advice. PureWine products are designed to help reduce certain compounds in wine; individual experiences vary. If alcohol or wine causes symptoms, talk with a qualified healthcare professional.
Guest Links:
- David Meadows, PhD: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-meadows-phd-94a28056/
- Derek Meadows: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-meadows-mba-222b45168/
- PureWine Website: https://drinkpurewine.com/
- Email: derek@drinkpurewine.com and david@drinkpurewine.com
- 20% off your first order discount code: ABARNEY20
Host:
- Adam W. Barney
- Transition Leadership Coach
- Creator of EnergyOS
- Author of Make Your Own Glass Half Full
- Host of Is Anything Real?
Book your 20-min Exploration Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/explorationplugin-20min
Subscribe to Is Anything Real?: https://isanythingreal.adamwbarney.com/
00:00:05
Here's a myth that needs to be decanted
00:00:07
before it gets served as wisdom.
00:00:10
Alcohol is one simple conversation,
00:00:12
and that's just not true.
00:00:14
It's too easy.
00:00:15
It's too lazy,
00:00:16
and it's too much moral theater in a stemmed glass,
00:00:19
because the current conversation
00:00:21
often collapses everything,
00:00:23
whether it's wine, beer, spirits,
00:00:25
drinking patterns, addiction, social connection,
00:00:29
into one word: alcohol.
00:00:31
And then everybody starts yelling
00:00:33
from opposite sides of the bar.
00:00:36
One side says
00:00:36
no amount is safe.
00:00:38
Another sayswine
00:00:38
has been part of human culture
00:00:40
for thousands of years.
00:00:42
And yet another says
00:00:43
I'm not addicted.
00:00:44
I just can't tolerate wine the way I used to.
00:00:47
Another one actually says I missed the ritual,
00:00:50
the dinner, the glass, the connection,
00:00:52
but their body started voting differently,
00:00:54
and that's where this gets interesting,
00:00:56
because I don't think the real question is,
00:00:58
should everyone drink?
00:01:00
The real question is,
00:01:01
can we have a more honest conversation
00:01:02
about alcohol, wine, risk, ritual, and biology
00:01:06
without turning the whole thing
00:01:08
into a binary cultural cage match?
00:01:11
Welcome back to "Is Anything Real?",
00:01:13
the reality-first leadership show
00:01:15
where we test advice,
00:01:16
publish the receipts,
00:01:17
and ship what actually works under pressure.
00:01:19
I'm Adam W. Barney,
00:01:20
transition leadership coach,
00:01:22
author of "Make Your Own Glass Half Full,"
00:01:24
and builder of Energy OS,
00:01:26
where I help leaders
00:01:27
rebuild their operating system
00:01:28
when the tools that got them here stop working.
00:01:31
Today's guests are
00:01:32
David Meadows, PhD,
00:01:34
and Derek Meadows,
00:01:35
co-founders of PureWine.
00:01:37
David brings a biomedical engineering background.
00:01:40
Derek brings the operational founder lens.
00:01:43
And together they've built PureWine
00:01:45
around a deceptively simple idea:
00:01:48
maybe some of what people blame on alcohol
00:01:51
is actually their body reacting to other compounds
00:01:54
in fermented beverages,
00:01:56
especially biogenic amines,
00:01:59
like histamine and tyramine.
00:02:01
Their product filters wine before consumption,
00:02:05
not after,
00:02:06
not the next morning,
00:02:07
and not as a supplement
00:02:09
trying to chase regret after the fact.
00:02:11
It's before you drink.
00:02:13
Derek, David,
00:02:14
welcome to "Is Anything Real?".
00:02:16
Hey, thanks.
00:02:17
Thank you, Adam.
00:02:18
All right.
00:02:19
Well, let's start clean, for lack of a better word.
00:02:23
You know, David, Derek,
00:02:24
what do you think the public conversation
00:02:26
about alcohol
00:02:27
is currently getting wrong?
00:02:29
Well, like you said,
00:02:32
it's a case of being oversimplified, Adam.
00:02:35
And so what we, Derek and I,
00:02:37
really 10 years ago,
00:02:39
a little over 10 years ago,
00:02:41
encountered the same issue.
00:02:43
Is that when you stop being able
00:02:45
to drink a beverage that you enjoy,
00:02:47
which is what I did.
00:02:48
I enjoyed red wine,
00:02:49
and I started having symptoms from it.
00:02:52
And sometimes I'd drink just a half a glass of wine
00:02:54
and I'd lose my voice for a couple of hours.
00:02:57
My background being medicine,
00:02:59
I talked with Derek
00:03:00
because he was just getting out of college
00:03:02
and was making these fermented beer on our kitchen stove,
00:03:06
and he was making IPAs
00:03:07
that would make him feel like he wanted to throw up.
00:03:11
And so, after just drinking a small amount,
00:03:13
so that's the whole thing, is that we knew
00:03:16
it's basically the scientific method.
00:03:18
We were none of us,
00:03:20
neither of us was drinking enough ethanol,
00:03:23
and that's really,
00:03:24
we have to distinguish between alcohol and ethanol.
00:03:27
Is that ethanol is really what causes inebriation.
00:03:31
That's what makes you feel happy
00:03:33
and also puts you to sleep, too.
00:03:35
But the symptoms that I was on a half a glass of wine,
00:03:39
and there was not enough ethanol there
00:03:41
to get any kind of inebriation.
00:03:43
So, fast-forward, we said,
00:03:45
okay, there's something else
00:03:47
in these beverages that are causing these side effects.
00:03:50
And through my background
00:03:52
and Derek's research with that,
00:03:54
we discovered it's these biogenic amines
00:03:56
that are naturally formed
00:03:58
in all fermentation process.
00:04:00
Whether it be in beer, wine, sake,
00:04:03
or even fermented meats.
00:04:06
Anything that is fermented
00:04:08
will form these biogenic amines.
00:04:10
So it's a very, very basic understanding.
00:04:13
The amino acids that are in proteins
00:04:15
that are in the skin of a grape,
00:04:18
or whether it be in the husk of a grain,
00:04:20
or even in the meats,
00:04:22
are going to be formed into these histamines
00:04:25
that are going to go into your body,
00:04:27
and they're going to cause
00:04:28
classic symptoms of allergy-type symptoms.
00:04:31
So there's going to be the headache,
00:04:34
which is from vasodilation,
00:04:36
meaning that your blood vessels dilate.
00:04:38
You're going to get flushing of the skin.
00:04:40
You're going to get GI upset.
00:04:42
And so, going back to really
00:04:44
what we said was the scientific method,
00:04:46
we discovered there are a lot of myths out there
00:04:49
that we needed to unpack,
00:04:51
so that people could still enjoy wine,
00:04:54
but yet remove the histamines
00:04:57
and the sulfites which are in wine
00:04:59
so that when they get to middle age
00:05:01
and start having these side effects,
00:05:03
they don't have to give up the wine or the beer
00:05:06
that is their preference.
00:05:07
So anyway, that's the summary, Adam,
00:05:10
of what was really a series of
00:05:13
couple years of work in the laboratory
00:05:16
to find a way of removing those histamines.
00:05:18
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:19
And obviously, you know,
00:05:21
this episode isn't about, you know,
00:05:23
wine good; abstinence bad,
00:05:25
right?
00:05:25
There's a tension here to hold.
00:05:27
I think actually if we collapse all of it
00:05:32
into a single binary,
00:05:35
whether it's drink or don't drink,
00:05:37
smart or stupid,
00:05:38
healthy or unhealthy,
00:05:40
moral or irresponsible,
00:05:42
we lose the conversation,
00:05:43
and I think there's so much nuance in there.
00:05:46
What's the difference between sort of,
00:05:49
warning people honestly
00:05:51
and scaring people simplistically, let's say?
00:05:55
Well, I think it is a matter of gradations.
00:06:00
Obviously, anything that is overconsumption
00:06:03
will eventually have a problem,
00:06:05
whether it be from foods,
00:06:07
or types of foods,
00:06:08
or drink,
00:06:09
or any of that.
00:06:10
And so the whole word
00:06:11
that everybody says is moderation, obviously.
00:06:14
Is doing things in moderation.
00:06:16
But what has happened recently
00:06:18
is there's this sort of fear-mongering
00:06:20
that all alcohols are bad,
00:06:21
and they need to be removed from your diet.
00:06:24
And yet we have 9 years of history,
00:06:28
and most of us
00:06:29
grew up around healthy consumption of alcohol.
00:06:33
And then there was the French paradox
00:06:36
where there was the initial idea of,
00:06:38
nope, you want to have these
00:06:41
flavoproteins and the antioxidants in wine,
00:06:44
particularly red wine,
00:06:46
that boost your immune system.
00:06:48
So then, there's a lot of scientific rigor
00:06:51
that have demonstrated that.
00:06:53
So, it comes back to the nuance of that.
00:06:56
And what we've discovered
00:06:58
is that if you separate out the symptomatology,
00:07:02
the symptoms of people getting intolerant,
00:07:05
that's the histamine intolerance,
00:07:07
is that you're able to find a population
00:07:10
that if you remove the histamines,
00:07:11
all of a sudden they can drink wine again,
00:07:13
and they don't have this sense
00:07:15
that they're doing something bad to their body.
00:07:18
Because that's really what I think is,
00:07:19
you get these early signals that,
00:07:22
let's say a migraine sufferer,
00:07:24
or someone at menopause
00:07:26
starts getting very bad flushing.
00:07:28
They start getting a migraine headache,
00:07:30
and they say,
00:07:31
"Oh my gosh, I'm poisoning my body."
00:07:33
No, it's just that you've become intolerant
00:07:35
as you've aged
00:07:36
because 80 percent of people
00:07:38
who are histamine intolerant
00:07:40
are in middle age,
00:07:41
and it's part of the natural aging process
00:07:44
that we all go through,
00:07:45
and it's just it's real.
00:07:47
And so, if you have a way of
00:07:49
taking those histamines out of your diet,
00:07:52
whether it be a food,
00:07:54
a solid food,
00:07:55
or beverage,
00:07:56
you can now enjoy those again,
00:07:58
and not have to be fearful
00:07:59
that you're doing something
00:08:01
bad to your body.
00:08:02
So, I think that's really what
00:08:04
we're trying to do,
00:08:05
is give people enough education
00:08:07
on what they're feeling,
00:08:08
because they're feeling.
00:08:09
I mean, they go out,
00:08:10
and they have a glass of red wine
00:08:11
and they feel terrible the next day
00:08:13
and they think they overconsumed
00:08:15
on one glass of wine.
00:08:16
That's not the case.
00:08:17
They did not overconsume.
00:08:18
They found a particular, let's say,
00:08:21
a Cabernet from Napa,
00:08:22
that has a lot of histamines in it,
00:08:24
and they wake up saying,
00:08:25
"Oh my gosh, I've done something bad to my body."
00:08:28
No, you didn't.
00:08:29
It's just that Cabernet grapes
00:08:30
have a lot of histamines in them,
00:08:32
and you may want to try
00:08:34
a Pinot Noir from Oregon.
00:08:36
And you won't have the symptoms.
00:08:38
So it's managing that sense of anxiety, I think, Adam,
00:08:41
that's our mission.
00:08:43
That's our mission at PureWine
00:08:45
is to help people understand what's going on
00:08:48
as they age,
00:08:49
and that wine can still be
00:08:51
a vital part of their lifestyle.
00:08:54
So Derek, would you,
00:08:55
Derek is very passionate about this too,
00:08:57
because he's been along the whole path.
00:09:02
Yeah, I mean, Dave,
00:09:03
David said it very, very articulate, Adam.
00:09:04
It's basically, we have lots of little kitschy catchphrases
00:09:08
for bite-sized, you know,
00:09:10
pitches for the brand
00:09:11
because science can go deep,
00:09:12
and even now,
00:09:13
there's just more and more
00:09:15
white papers and data coming out about it.
00:09:17
You know, people have
00:09:18
full multiple dissertations and PhDs and MDs
00:09:21
on these topics.
00:09:22
So they are heavy,
00:09:23
but when you boil it down,
00:09:25
we're a Brita filter for wine,
00:09:27
in that sense.
00:09:28
Basically a pre-consumption filter
00:09:32
that for anyone who has a more sensitive diet,
00:09:36
who has a clean eating and drinking,
00:09:39
clean living mantra.
00:09:40
Personally, I cannot drink red wine,
00:09:43
white wine sometimes,
00:09:45
but red wine at all without our products.
00:09:48
Wow.
00:09:48
I just get instantly splotchy red,
00:09:50
I get scratchy,
00:09:51
I get swelling,
00:09:52
not to the point of hives,
00:09:54
but just like very uncomfortable.
00:09:56
I get insomnia.
00:09:57
I'll wake up sweating at 2 a.m.
00:09:59
and just really irritable.
00:10:00
And then obviously,
00:10:01
I'm going to be irritable the next day
00:10:02
because I didn't sleep well.
00:10:04
It's pretty gnarly and you can't, you know,
00:10:06
oh man that sounds,
00:10:07
but it's like it's like very uncomfortable.
00:10:09
It's painful to the point of it,
00:10:11
and I know I'm even on the more mild side.
00:10:14
Some people who are maybe
00:10:16
on additional medications
00:10:18
or at certain ages,
00:10:19
it becomes, or even just one drop,
00:10:21
or one little swig is an instant migraine.
00:10:24
I don't know if you know anyone personally,
00:10:26
but those are the things that,
00:10:28
you know, people who have those,
00:10:30
they just,
00:10:31
we can't help but problem-solve as humans.
00:10:34
If there's a problem,
00:10:35
our nature is to find the solution.
00:10:37
And so the only thing that wine,
00:10:39
per the TTB,
00:10:40
has to say on the bottle
00:10:42
is the ethanol ABV and the sulfites.
00:10:44
So you're like,
00:10:45
oh, why am I hurting?
00:10:46
I look at the back, and I say,
00:10:47
oh, it's got to be one of those two culprits.
00:10:49
Because those are on there,
00:10:50
like we read the food labels
00:10:53
on the back of our peanut butter,
00:10:55
or on the back of our high fructose corn syrup.
00:10:59
Like, okay, these are all the dextrose, malt,
00:11:01
blah, blah, blah.
00:11:02
So it's got to, let's go, you know,
00:11:04
elimination diet on every single one of those things.
00:11:07
But you can't do that with wine
00:11:08
because they're regulatory-wise,
00:11:10
there's only alcohol and sulfites.
00:11:14
And then you can kind of start having the conversation
00:11:16
around varietals, blends,
00:11:17
but most people lose it at that point.
00:11:20
We've had a lot; we're kind of
00:11:22
having to educate, first ourselves,
00:11:24
and the people who want to be educated,
00:11:26
and then start the whole conversation
00:11:28
and narrative
00:11:29
around what it takes
00:11:31
to really show people like,
00:11:33
hey, dig under the surface.
00:11:34
How do you layer?
00:11:35
Again, each varietal is different.
00:11:37
The types of yeast strains
00:11:39
that they use in different parts of the world,
00:11:43
either the ABA or the DOC,
00:11:45
if you're talking Europe,
00:11:46
those are typically yeast strain-dependent,
00:11:49
and varietal dependent,
00:11:51
so you can't really, like,
00:11:52
have a paint-all brush
00:11:54
with what works for each of those regions.
00:11:58
You know, that can be frustrating,
00:11:59
but at the end of the day,
00:12:00
that's what makes wine
00:12:01
very, very, very special
00:12:02
is because it is so layered,
00:12:04
so nuanced.
00:12:06
It just, you know, if anyone's had their,
00:12:09
doesn't even have to be expensive,
00:12:10
but that glass of wine
00:12:11
that did them in
00:12:12
where they're like,
00:12:13
wait a second,
00:12:14
that was magic.
00:12:15
How do I get more of that in my life?
00:12:17
It becomes,
00:12:18
it's kind of an existential experience
00:12:19
because you're like,
00:12:21
this makes so much sense in my body.
00:12:23
I'm so happy.
00:12:25
It makes sense in a social environment.
00:12:27
Makes sense from a religious standpoint too.
00:12:29
It makes sense from just a lot of different areas and facets
00:12:33
of life that go, you know,
00:12:34
that are as old as humans are.
00:12:37
So, it's kind of,
00:12:38
the people who are trying to do away with that
00:12:40
are trying to do away with sort of the human story.
00:12:44
and, at the end, that's really a shame.
00:12:47
And to me, it's kind of
00:12:48
why do you need to go to that extreme, you know?
00:12:52
I want to turn this toward founders for a minute, also
00:12:57
because, you know,
00:12:58
my audience is full of founders,
00:13:00
operators, executives,
00:13:01
and people building things in noisy markets.
00:13:05
You're not just selling a product;
00:13:07
you're fighting a category story
00:13:08
and I think that's much harder
00:13:10
because if the market believes the problem
00:13:13
is alcohol causes hangovers, period,
00:13:15
then your message has to educate people.
00:13:19
You know, eh, Derek, what's been hardest about,
00:13:22
or, you know, Derek and David,
00:13:24
what's been hardest about building a category
00:13:27
people don't yet fully understand?
00:13:30
Yeah, I'll give the short answer,
00:13:31
then he'll give you the probably longer, better answer.
00:13:35
The hardest part is people
00:13:36
who don't want to educate themselves,
00:13:38
I think.
00:13:39
People who already,
00:13:40
and we're all guilty of it to some extent
00:13:43
with our bias,
00:13:44
is we already think we've arrived at the answer
00:13:46
and when you think you've arrived at the answer
00:13:48
you're no longer likely to keep questioning things.
00:13:51
Either the wine industry itself,
00:13:53
the winemakers who think wine's the best,
00:13:57
I have no issues with wine people
00:13:59
who come into our tasting rooms
00:14:01
Have no problems,
00:14:02
the problem is them,
00:14:03
not my beverage.
00:14:05
And to some extent they're right
00:14:07
because we all have our problems,
00:14:09
but people, you just,
00:14:10
when you think of that,
00:14:11
that's a very arrogant place to stand.
00:14:15
So, that eliminates
00:14:16
a good chunk of the wine industry themselves,
00:14:20
from addressing real-world problems
00:14:22
and being sensitive to other people's demands,
00:14:25
which probably is why wine
00:14:27
has taken such a dip
00:14:28
over the past couple years
00:14:29
because it's become isolatory,
00:14:31
mostly for economic reasons,
00:14:33
and we can get on to that on another episode.
00:14:35
But yeah, you have to be sensitive
00:14:38
to what the different tiers of consumers
00:14:41
are coming into the industry with, you know,
00:14:44
economics, health, age, alcohol.
00:14:48
You know, the whole NA thing,
00:14:51
I think is very good for people
00:14:52
who want to drink wine
00:14:54
but do have consumption issues
00:14:57
but still want to drink wine.
00:14:58
So just being sensitive to the markets and submarkets,
00:15:01
that's probably challenging.
00:15:04
So education, I would say education awareness,
00:15:08
and not giving up fortitude,
00:15:10
just determination.
00:15:12
Bullhead, just every day keep going.
00:15:15
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:16
Well, and I think category creation gets real
00:15:18
when the product is not just what you sell,
00:15:21
it's the new question you teach
00:15:23
the market to ask.
00:15:25
Adam, that's a great point
00:15:26
because it's very true now
00:15:28
that we all live in the algorithms.
00:15:30
Even we've had to contact
00:15:31
every single marketplace we're on on an e-com digital standpoint,
00:15:35
we've had to create the market.
00:15:37
So, actually two weeks ago
00:15:39
I went to the Walmart seller
00:15:41
and met with three different Walmart reps
00:15:43
to create, actually create a new category
00:15:46
within their within their algorithm
00:15:49
because the AdWords and campaigns couldn't
00:15:53
decide where to put us,
00:15:54
and so they're putting us against supplements,
00:15:56
or they're putting against
00:15:57
bar wear little widget thingies,
00:15:59
which we're not.
00:16:00
We kind of are those,
00:16:02
but we're much more than any of those.
00:16:04
We've had to do that on Target, Costco, Amazon.
00:16:09
Every one of those,
00:16:10
we've had to meet with the higher-ups
00:16:11
and redesign how the search engine works
00:16:15
for our market segment.
00:16:18
Wow.
00:16:18
That's incredible.
00:16:20
You know, also I want to quickly
00:16:22
touch on that phrase "neo prohibition,"
00:16:24
right?
00:16:25
Because it's spicy,
00:16:26
and spicy can either clarify or distract people.
00:16:30
You know, in one of the articles,
00:16:32
David, that you sent over,
00:16:34
Tom Wark argued that
00:16:35
no safe level narrative
00:16:37
has pushed people away
00:16:38
from moderate drinking,
00:16:40
and that media coverage
00:16:41
is beginning to
00:16:42
add some nuance back into the conversation.
00:16:46
You know, my question around that though, is
00:16:50
what's a fair critique of anti-alcohol messaging,
00:16:54
and where does that critique risk going too far?
00:16:58
Well, I think it's overinterpreting the data.
00:17:00
That, as a scientist,
00:17:02
that's really the risk
00:17:04
is that you look behind the curtain
00:17:06
of the people who are pushing it.
00:17:07
There's two major fundamental forces.
00:17:10
You have the neo-prohibitionists of,
00:17:13
who in different countries
00:17:15
who have done that,
00:17:16
and they have distinct agendas for that.
00:17:20
Some of them are overt business people
00:17:23
who are trying to bring people into their own businesses
00:17:27
and push their own services.
00:17:29
And I think you really have to be concerned about that.
00:17:31
The other are the people
00:17:33
who have no alcohol products.
00:17:35
And what people don't realize
00:17:37
is that any of these products
00:17:38
that are no alcohol,
00:17:40
they bypass all the taxes that go into that.
00:17:43
So these wineries, you know,
00:17:45
whether they be large or small wineries,
00:17:47
you remove the alcohol,
00:17:49
and now you make basically grape juice
00:17:51
that tastes kind of like wine,
00:17:53
but it's not very good anyway.
00:17:56
It usually has a zero shelf life.
00:17:58
Is that they bypass the taxes.
00:18:00
So all of a sudden
00:18:01
they can put profit to the bottom line
00:18:04
on let's say, a $15 bottle of expensive grape juice,
00:18:07
and they make it very profitable.
00:18:09
So, you have to look beyond that
00:18:11
kind of unfortunate sort of approach
00:18:14
that these people have,
00:18:16
and you also have,
00:18:17
on the third leg of that stool,
00:18:19
is you do have the people
00:18:20
who have grown up
00:18:21
in alcohol abused environments.
00:18:24
But what you find is that very few
00:18:26
of those are associated with wine.
00:18:29
Wine typically isn't the beverage that's been abused,
00:18:32
but that's a whole nother nuance.
00:18:34
But I think recognize that
00:18:37
throughout history is that people
00:18:39
have been able to drink responsibly,
00:18:42
and the social aspect is huge.
00:18:45
Is that you find, no matter what data is recently
00:18:48
the isolation that is going on
00:18:50
across the world really
00:18:52
is really having a huge impact on society,
00:18:57
and as a social lubricant,
00:18:58
and as a food,
00:18:59
and a lifestyle beverage.
00:19:02
There we have to push back and say,
00:19:04
folks,
00:19:04
let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
00:19:07
That's never healthy,
00:19:08
and we need to have this dissociation
00:19:11
with these age-onset allergies,
00:19:14
I think.
00:19:14
Because there's a miss,
00:19:16
there's a disconnect there
00:19:18
is that if you say no,
00:19:20
it is not having a bad impact on your body.
00:19:23
Your body is just intolerant of these histamines,
00:19:26
and so that's the kind of messaging,
00:19:29
and we find a very receptive audience,
00:19:31
but it's like Derek said,
00:19:32
it's all about education
00:19:33
because we are creating a whole new category
00:19:36
to where it's not black and white.
00:19:38
It's not a beverage that is toxic to you.
00:19:42
It isn't at all.
00:19:43
It's just that the enzymes in your body
00:19:45
that I'll throw out a little science
00:19:47
because I think it is important
00:19:48
for your audience to have a little hooks
00:19:49
if they want to do some research.
00:19:51
Look under histamine intolerance.
00:19:54
Just do a search on that, HIT.
00:19:56
You'll see a vast array of data on that,and
00:19:59
it'll impact everyone
00:20:01
from person who's just given birth,
00:20:03
so it'd be postpartum kind of issues
00:20:06
with your immunology being disequilibrium,
00:20:09
and then or, perimenopausal,
00:20:11
or people who have had other diseases that, you know,
00:20:15
whether it be irritable bowel syndrome
00:20:18
or whether insomnia, migraine,
00:20:20
all of those will be impacted
00:20:21
by this histamine that you take.
00:20:24
Whether it be from alcoholic beverage,
00:20:25
or whether it be from a fermented meat or a cheese,
00:20:28
because you're going to have the same kind
00:20:30
of potential side effects from that.
00:20:32
So I think to answer your question,
00:20:34
going back though,
00:20:35
the category is so important
00:20:37
when you're creating a new category.
00:20:39
It's all about having the validity,
00:20:42
the credibility that can say,
00:20:44
no, those are myths
00:20:46
that have not been helpful in that,
00:20:49
and we have to redefine.
00:20:52
What the real issues are and do it in a credible way, because
00:20:55
we feel like it's it's a it's definitely a blue ocean for us.
00:20:59
But we we have to we're the we're the creators.
00:21:02
We created the new category,
00:21:04
but that means that we have to be the thought leaders.
00:21:06
That's literally why we're meeting with you on your podcast.
00:21:09
That's a way of getting out the message in all forms,
00:21:14
and we're not shy about talking about it
00:21:18
because we know it works.
00:21:19
We've done all the science.
00:21:21
We've done all the clinical work
00:21:23
necessitated by that,
00:21:25
and we've sold our product
00:21:27
to over 25 million people.
00:21:29
So we know that it works,
00:21:32
and we're just all about education.
00:21:36
I'll chime in there.
00:21:37
I think what you're doing
00:21:38
is one of the most important things
00:21:40
because it's having the conversation.
00:21:42
I think we're so used to
00:21:43
being fed the answers via clickbait,
00:21:45
via just this digital world we live in.
00:21:48
We want the answers
00:21:50
because it feels good.
00:21:51
It's like you get the math problem,
00:21:53
you check the back of the book.
00:21:54
Oh, there you go.
00:21:55
But the actual work it takes
00:21:57
to evolve and grow ourselves
00:21:59
and arrive at maybe
00:22:00
a more truer answer for ourselves
00:22:02
is to do the hard work of learning
00:22:04
and doing the math problem, right?
00:22:06
And that's different for everyone's person.
00:22:08
And we're trying to just give lots of variables
00:22:10
on how every person has to go on that journey
00:22:12
for themselves.
00:22:13
Some people should probably never drink wine ever,
00:22:15
or any alcohol,
00:22:16
right?
00:22:18
But when we have these catch-alls
00:22:20
that unfortunately medical space
00:22:22
doesn't always get right
00:22:24
for our unique persona,
00:22:26
we have to also take up the hard work,
00:22:30
and intuition,
00:22:32
and all these other factors
00:22:34
that go into arriving at how we ourselves
00:22:37
need to live.
00:22:37
But David's point is good, you know,
00:22:40
if you're throwing away wine
00:22:41
and in the process you're losing friends,
00:22:44
you're losing social isolation,
00:22:46
you're being isolated,
00:22:47
you're losing history,
00:22:49
you're losing, and you're gaining judgments,
00:22:51
you're gaining frustration.
00:22:52
You're like what?
00:22:53
That's a pretty big cost.
00:22:56
That's a huge loss.
00:22:57
I think what we've learned is that,
00:22:59
over the years that we've learned
00:23:01
we were having a real struggle
00:23:03
getting into wineries initially
00:23:04
because they were thinking,
00:23:06
well, we were telling them the baby was ugly
00:23:08
because they were saying, oh,
00:23:10
we've got wine that needs to be filtered.
00:23:13
but now we have over 300 wineries
00:23:15
who buy our products
00:23:17
because they've encountered a large subpopulation
00:23:20
who are having a wine tasting with their friends,
00:23:22
and they're drinking a Coke
00:23:24
or drinking water.
00:23:25
They say, I can't drink wine anymore.
00:23:27
It makes me feel bad.
00:23:28
And so, now they can participate with their friends
00:23:31
when they go to a Napa Valley winery,
00:23:35
or Paso Robles,
00:23:36
or any place like that.
00:23:37
Or when they have friends over.
00:23:40
Or they're just out having dinner,
00:23:42
and so that's that's a big part of that, too,
00:23:45
is that sense of socialization
00:23:47
and we also have several hospitals and healthcare groups,
00:23:50
I won't name them by name,
00:23:51
but they carry our products
00:23:53
in their health and wellness clinics.
00:23:55
Because it is so important
00:23:57
for people who are recovering from illnesses
00:24:00
to be social,
00:24:01
to feel like they're,
00:24:02
in fact, quite a few of them
00:24:04
are cancer-type recovery programs
00:24:06
because people who have gone through traumatic surgeries
00:24:10
or other things,
00:24:11
they often feel like they've left
00:24:13
a big part of their life behind.
00:24:15
Literally from day one,
00:24:19
some of our earliest customers were large hospital networks
00:24:22
who have us as part of their health and wellness
00:24:26
to help facilitate that reassociation of people
00:24:30
into their lifestyle.
00:24:34
Well, I love this conversation, you know,
00:24:36
and I want to move it into one move
00:24:39
our listeners can run this week.
00:24:40
And I'm going to call this one
00:24:42
The Informed Choice Audit.
00:24:44
And I would say it's for founders and executives,
00:24:47
but it's for wine lovers,
00:24:48
sober curious listeners, skeptics,
00:24:50
people whose bodies are changing,
00:24:52
which, all of our bodies are changing,
00:24:55
and anyone who's just tired of being yelled at
00:24:58
by both wellness culture and beverage marketing.
00:25:01
And it's just four simple questions, right?
00:25:03
The first being:
00:25:04
what story am I reacting to?
00:25:07
I would weave in maybe some of the science,
00:25:09
David, of course,
00:25:10
that you were talking about here in that one.
00:25:12
What's my body actually telling me?
00:25:14
I don't think we listen to our bodies closely enough, right?
00:25:17
So make sure that happens.
00:25:19
The third being:
00:25:20
what risk am I willing to own honestly?
00:25:23
You know, grown-up choices require grown-up ownership.
00:25:27
And then the fourth final one:
00:25:29
what ritual or connection
00:25:30
am I trying to preserve,
00:25:32
and is there a responsible way to preserve it?
00:25:36
Derek, David, what would you add,
00:25:37
or how would you
00:25:38
make that list even more powerful
00:25:39
for someone listening today to start with?
00:25:42
That's good.
00:25:42
Go for it, pops.
00:25:43
For me, I think it is just really
00:25:46
owning that,
00:25:46
of just saying, no,
00:25:48
I'm not going to listen to the myths.
00:25:50
I'm going to do a little bit of research.
00:25:52
I really enjoy, in our case,
00:25:54
wine or beer because our products
00:25:57
work with any fermented beverage
00:25:59
and say, no,
00:26:00
it's too much of an important
00:26:02
part of my life,
00:26:03
and that I view this as an important lifestyle choice
00:26:09
and to know that I can still have those
00:26:13
as part of my life
00:26:15
and to understand those changes
00:26:17
that are occurring in my body,
00:26:19
particularly these that, whether it be
00:26:21
estrogen-linked kind of things at menopause.
00:26:24
There's explanations for that,
00:26:27
and that there is a sense of ownership
00:26:29
and not overly reacting,
00:26:31
because that's what we're so good at, Adam,
00:26:34
is within our media,
00:26:35
of creating fear and anxiety,
00:26:38
and that's not healthy, is that it.
00:26:41
And so, I think that's really been our mission
00:26:46
is to push back on that and say that
00:26:49
we as consumers need to own that story
00:26:53
and we need to own our own lifestyles
00:26:56
and we need to try and understand that better
00:26:59
and that there are trustworthy ways
00:27:02
of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
00:27:06
People say, well, you're an alcohol accessory.
00:27:08
We aren't.
00:27:09
We're actually a lifestyle brand.
00:27:11
We really are,
00:27:12
because you allow people to
00:27:13
maintain their lifestyles that they're accustomed to, so,
00:27:16
that's really the category
00:27:18
that we've positioned ourselves in.
00:27:21
I love that because the real move here
00:27:23
is not drink or don't drink.
00:27:24
It's to stop letting slogans
00:27:26
make adult decisions for you.
00:27:28
But you know, Derek, David,
00:27:30
you know how we end,
00:27:31
after all of this,
00:27:32
but especially that myth
00:27:33
that alcohol is one simple conversation,
00:27:36
is anything real?
00:27:40
Oh yeah.
00:27:41
Yeah.
00:27:42
Yeah.
00:27:43
Food is very much so.
00:27:45
Wine is wine is very real,
00:27:46
and should never not be real.
00:27:48
I can attest, wine is very real.
00:27:52
Yeah, what feels real to me
00:27:53
is that nuance with receipts, right?
00:27:55
It's not denial.
00:27:57
It's not fear theater.
00:27:59
Wellness slogans.
00:28:00
It's that nuance.
00:28:01
Yeah.
00:28:02
Willingness to admit that alcohol carries risk.
00:28:05
Wine carries culture.
00:28:07
Our bodies change.
00:28:08
The chemistry matters.
00:28:10
And adults deserve better
00:28:11
than a flattened conversation
00:28:13
dressed up as certainty, but.
00:28:15
You know, Derek, David,
00:28:16
where can folks find PureWine
00:28:18
and learn much more
00:28:19
about what you're building here?
00:28:21
Well, and I probably ought to just show you
00:28:23
what they are, is just so that people say,
00:28:25
"Well, you're Brita filter for wine."
00:28:27
I don't want this to be a hawk or anything,
00:28:29
but people need to know what they're looking for.
00:28:31
This is our wand product.
00:28:33
It comes in a sleeve,
00:28:35
and it's basically,
00:28:37
it has patented,
00:28:38
we have over 20 patents,
00:28:40
and this is ion exchange resins
00:28:41
that are in here.
00:28:43
And the way it works, Adam,
00:28:44
is that they just put it into their glass of wine,
00:28:47
and they swirl it for a couple of minutes,
00:28:49
and it removes just the histamines
00:28:51
and the sulfite preservatives,
00:28:53
and leaves all the good things.
00:28:54
And it works in all types of wines,
00:28:56
whether it be a white wine, red wine, rosé.
00:28:58
Works for beer and fermented beverages.
00:29:01
Any other, you know, such as a brown spirit.
00:29:03
And so you can find it
00:29:05
literally everywhere wine is sold.
00:29:07
So we're in everywhere from Total Wine to Bucky's.
00:29:10
Okay, those in the South
00:29:12
know about Bucky's Convenience Stores,
00:29:14
and we're in over 5 doors.
00:29:17
We're actually in several international markets also.
00:29:21
And we have one other product.
00:29:23
I just want people to know
00:29:24
what they're looking for.
00:29:26
That's for the on-the-go, in your pocket.
00:29:28
But this is the Phoenix,
00:29:29
where you use it for the whole bottle,
00:29:32
so you just put this on the bottle,
00:29:35
and it has in it,
00:29:37
you put a carry cartridge
00:29:39
because we want this to be able to be disposable.
00:29:42
Okay, this is made out of sugarcane plastic,
00:29:44
so you don't have to worry about environmental issues.
00:29:46
You just put it inside the unit here,
00:29:50
and you put the lid on it,
00:29:53
and it filters your wine as you pour.
00:29:56
So it's very convenient,
00:29:57
and again, I didn't want to be super commercial on this, Adam,
00:30:00
but we did want people to know what we've done
00:30:03
is that we've created two product lines:
00:30:05
one for in the glass,
00:30:06
so that when you're out and about,
00:30:08
you can put in your purse or pocket.
00:30:09
Or for home and convenience,
00:30:11
we've got a whole bottle filter.
00:30:12
And so, depending on your lifestyle,
00:30:16
we've got a product for all applications.
00:30:20
Adam, we didn't talk about it.
00:30:21
Do you want us to do a little promo code for your people?
00:30:23
Yeah, sure.
00:30:24
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:26
I will put that in the show notes
00:30:28
when we go live here.
00:30:29
So we'll do
00:30:31
ABarney20
00:30:32
for any listeners
00:30:34
get 20% off their first order.
00:30:37
They go that way,
00:30:38
is that something fun?
00:30:39
Fantastic.
00:30:39
Cool.
00:30:40
It's great.
00:30:41
You know, for our listeners,
00:30:42
I would say stop outsourcing
00:30:44
your nuance to slogans.
00:30:46
Alcohol, again, is not one conversation.
00:30:49
Wine is not just ethanol.
00:30:51
Abstinence is valid.
00:30:52
Risk is real.
00:30:54
Social connection is real,
00:30:55
and your body's changing tolerance is real.
00:30:57
And the most adult move available
00:31:00
isn't blind intelligence,
00:31:02
indulgence, or blanket fear.
00:31:04
It's informed choice.
00:31:05
So I would say if this hits, s
00:31:07
end it to a founder, wine lover,
00:31:09
sober curious friend,
00:31:10
or health-conscious executive,
00:31:13
or anyone, actually,
00:31:14
who likes complicated conversations
00:31:16
more than bumper sticker certainty.
00:31:18
And if you're navigating a leadership transition,
00:31:21
there's also a 20-minute foundational call with me
00:31:23
linked in the show notes.
00:31:24
But Derek, David,
00:31:25
thank you both for stirring the pot,
00:31:27
bringing the science,
00:31:29
and reminding us that the real conversation
00:31:31
usually lives somewhere more interesting than the binary.
00:31:35
Yeah.
00:31:37
Well said, Adam.
00:31:38
Thanks for your great program.
00:31:41
Thanks very much.
00:31:42
Thank you.
00:31:42
Well, listeners, until next time
00:31:45
stay grounded,
00:31:46
stay human,
00:31:46
and keep questioning the noise.