Wine has brought people together since its invention 8,000 years ago.

F*** the industry that’s using wine to drive people apart.

For longer than we’ve been able to write, we’ve been gathering around food and wine. Wine brings people together. Along the way, something got f***ed up: somehow, in America, wine got hijacked as the beverage of the elite, the pretentious, the stuck-up, the a**holes. As a team of folks who knows what it’s like to feel belittled and intimidated by the gatekeepers of wine, we’ve made it our mission to do the opposite. Nothing gives anyone the right to decide what you like and what you don’t.

unPINNED is a revolution against the industry that corrupted the very thing wine stood for at its inception: community, enjoyment, peace.

We are unequivocally opposed to anyone that approaches wine with pretentiousness. No more namedropping expensive bottles and fancy chateaus. No more shiny certificates. No more points and ratings. No more sommelier pins and people that worship them.

Just wine and everything you want to know about it.

The biggest secret that the industry doesn’t want you to know is that wine is not actually that complicated. Join us at unPINNED, and we’ll show you exactly what we mean.

MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Ashwin Muthiah,
Recovering Sommelier &
unPINNED Host

Born in Chennai and bounced as a youngling between the U.S. and India, Ashwin Muthiah is an author, wine educator, and documentary host, exploring the world through the lens of flavor and wine.

Over the past half-decade, Ashwin has lived in flavor-destinations around the world like Tbilisi, Georgia; Islay, Scotland; Budapest, Hungary; New York, New York; Belgrade, Serbia — all in pursuit of flavor.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, Ashwin studied the history of wine; in Toscana, Italy, he explored the pleasures of food, wine, cheese, olive oil, and prosciutto; in Islay, Scotland he distilled peated and unpeated whisky.

Ashwin is the author of In Pursuit of Flavor and the host of the eponymously-named documentary. He has led private tastings and classes for corporate, private, and public events around the world including in Washington, DC, San Francisco, New York, Boston, London, and Florence. He has a 5-star rating on Google with ~150 reviews and counting. Ashwin started unPINNED to give wine back to whom it belongs: everyone.

Ashwin lives with his partner in Florence, Italy — always with a notebook and a guitar.

Meet the Team