Hi, I’m Ari.
I came to wine the way I come to most things — through questions.
In my twenties living in DC, I’d drive out to Northern Virginia wineries in the off season, not just to taste, but to talk. To ask growers what they were paying attention to. To understand why a wine tasted like a place. I wasn’t in the industry. I just couldn’t stop being curious about it.
I still can’t.
By day I work in strategic communications — I help brands find their narrative, translate complexity, and say the true thing clearly. Wine, it turns out, requires exactly the same skills. Every bottle is a story about soil, climate, decision-making, and time. Most of that story never makes it to the glass. I’m interested in what gets left out.
The Point of All This
Because someone should be asking better questions about wine — and it might as well be us.
Appellation Unknown is for people who are curious about wine but tired of feeling like they missed a class everyone else took. And for people already in the world of wine who want a different lens on what they think they know.
No scores. No gatekeeping. Just a strategic communicator with a hyper fixation and a lot of questions.
Stay curious
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Pull up a chair
The best part of curiosity is that it's more interesting in company. If a post sparks a thought, a pushback, or a question of your own — bring it to the comments. That's where the real conversation happens.