BIG NEWS: The Capsule Pantry Is Now "The Sauce"
With a new extended remit
The best thing about Substack is that it is a safe space on the internet where you can do anything you please and find an audience for it.
And because it is your space, it can adapt and change with you as you adapt and change as a writer.
As it turns out, I’ve changed.
When I first started The Capsule Pantry, I had all but left my wine career behind.
Back in 2013, I founded Vino Vero, an independent, low-intervention wine store and bar on the UK’s east coast. I was lucky, it was successful. But it also nearly killed me (and alas, that’s not much of an overstatement). When I sold it in 2020, Vino Vero had burned me out good and proper and required a nearly two-year hiatus from anything to do professionally with wine whatsoever.
But just under a year ago, I had one of those lightning moments.
I was in Nantes, northern France in a wonderful wine bar called Maison Jaja. I was surrounded by wine, food and drinking a brilliant bottle (Sylvain Pataille’s Bourgogne Aligoté for anyone interested). Wine had been slowly creeping back into my life for a while but I was still resistant in doing anything professionally with it.
But during that moment, with that wine in front of me, I realised.
I wanted back in.
Now what?
“Now what” turned out to be a year of slowly returning to wine. Whilst I had written a wine article or two on Medium, I upped the ante there and gained a sizeable following (I’m closing in on 35,000 followers now). Wine became one of my most popular topics.
I moved to Portugal and began to hang out with the wine trade again. The bar owners, the winemakers, the distributors.
Slowly, wine has returned to my life in a healthier, more intentional way than before. In a way that means I hopefully will never burn out from it again.
So it’s no surprise that I want to bring my wine and booze writing to Substack.
Here’s how I’m going to do it.
Today, The Capsule Pantry is rebranded as The Sauce.
Rest assured, I will still write recipes. The Capsule Pantry will live on inside The Sauce.
The remit of The Sauce is however, bigger. I want it to include wine commentary. Nothing stuffy, sycophantic, or boring — that’s not how I roll — just actionable, interesting articles.
I’ll also be writing about food culture. I’ll give you travel recommendations based on my 15+ years of food and wine-focused travel. I want to bring on guest writers, and generally keep you entertained.
I’m starting with some of my most popular articles originally published behind Medium’s paywall. The first article will be with you today.
As with The Capsule Pantry, I intend to give away some pieces of content and paywall others. Free subscribers will still get at least one recipe a month plus other occasional posts.
Paid subscribers however get a whole other world for $5 a month or $50 a year including:
Access to all Capsule Pantry recipes old, new and future.
Access to every single food and wine story, opinion, and commentary I write.
15% off my remote wine consulting service SommAnywhere.
Or you could take advantage of my new founding member plan. $150 will give you every paid subscriber perk as well as:
Membership to The Sauce for life. Pay once, never pay again.
A free wine consultation at SommAnywhere.
A free copy of my Little Black Book of wineries - a resource packed full of the best wineries on the planet that I have spent 10+ years compiling.
Welcome to The Sauce. I hope you’ll love it here.
Any questions or comments, just let me know.
All the best,
Charlie
Congrats!