It’s Friday, May 1, and here’s your delivery of Commodity Bread. Debate over Washington DC’s most expensive grocery list is heating up, and so are conversations around humidity in wine-growing regions. Let’s dive right in.
🫒 Food
There's a funny thing about the US Farm Bill in that it's not really a farm bill.
If ultimately signed into law, the version that just yesterday cleared the US House of Representatives would cost roughly $1.4 trillion over ten years. Most of it has nothing to do with crops, land, or production. It actually goes toward SNAP, which ostensibly makes it the nation's most expensive grocery list.
That’s not new. In fact, it’s been the case for decades.
But there's a tension that's been building for some time. The Farm Bill, which is typically renewed every five years, has long depended on a bargain between rural support and urban nutrition spending. As SNAP has grown to dominate the bill, that bargain has been fraying. This cycle, lawmakers spent actual floor time haggling over whether the hungriest Americans should be allowed to buy rotisserie chicken with their food benefits. Meanwhile, against a backdrop of rising farm bankruptcies and economic headwinds, the bill passed by House lawmakers does almost nothing to address land access for first-generation farmers. That means there’s not much of an answer for a pretty fundamental question: who farms next?
The US Senate still needs to pass its own version, and with a 60-vote threshold, that means winning over Democrats who want to relitigate SNAP changes that Republicans consider closed. At some point, a bill this expensive — and this consequential — deserves a debate that's actually about what it says it's about.
Also on Commodity Bread
Are we in a new era of fine dining? That’s the case being made by a Spanish historian of science. This era’s got a futuristic name (and a definition that hits multiple hybrid wine buttons).
The laws designed to help farmers are helping someone else. A new-ish book dives into how laws that were long supposed to protect small farming operations are having a lopsided effect, benefitting mostly large-scale farming operations.
One chart, five countries. The PIWI landscape in Europe. The gap between where Europe's wine countries stand on disease-resistant grapes isn't about winemaking philosophy. It's about which wine cultures have the most to lose by admitting the old system isn't working — and which one has spent decades legally ensuring the transition couldn't happen. One chart tells the story perfectly. (FOR SUBSCRIBERS)
Should we force our spice racks to tell the truth? Your vanilla extract almost certainly says "Made in USA." That's not a lie — it's something more useful than a lie. A group of countries is about to meet and debate whether food labels should be required to tell you where ingredients actually came from, and the fault lines map exactly to who makes money where.
🍷 Wine
For those who are here from Grape Rush (hi!), you’ll already be familiar with this essay that I wrote on my foray into hybrid grape wines. If you’ve not had a chance to read, I’d love to hear what you think.
For this issue, the concept of wine moving north isn’t uncommon these days. Warming temperatures are pushing viticultural suitability toward cooler latitudes. New regions, new appellations, problem solved.
But there's a second climate story that doesn't get told alongside the first. Humidity doesn't move north the same way heat does. It creates east-west displacements that the temperature models miss entirely, and it brings with it the kind of fungal disease pressure that makes conventional wine grapes extraordinarily expensive to keep alive. In a bad year in northern Europe, that mean 14 fungicide applications just to maintain healthy fruit.
The varieties that struggle less with that problem are the ones the wine establishment spent decades ignoring. For this issue, I'm unlocking a piece about what that means for the future of wine — and why the northward expansion story is only half the picture.
On my radar
German winemakers plant more PIWI varieties. PIWI grape varieties continued to gain ground in Germany in 2025, even as the country’s overall vineyard area edged lower. (wein.plus)
A Minnesota winery’s winning streak. A small Minnesota winery, Rolling Forks Vineyards, has earned national recognition by making high-quality wines from cold-hardy grapes suited to its climate. It shows how non-traditional regions and unconventional grapes are challenging assumptions about where great wine can be made. (American Vineyard)
Champagne experiments with a new grape. Nice to see Wine Spectator giving some real estate to the fact that hybrid grapes are gaining traction in Europe, with Champagne approving its first disease-resistant variety — Voltis. Another sign that growers are looking to hybrids to reduce chemical use and adapt to a changing climate. (Wine Spectator)
Searching for the best free restaurant bread in America. Not wine-related, but the fabulous Caity Weaver does us all a public service in her personal quest to find the best free restaurant bread in America. Run don’t walk. (The Atlantic)
Wine List
Curiosity leads me into shops and bars to check out different wines. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve recently tried:
Accordion Wines, "Galipette - Skin Contact Cayuga White" (2023)
Bloomer Creek Vineyard, "Tanzen Dame Edelzwicker" (2023)
Piri Naturel, "Aurora" (2023)
For folks in a full rundown of what hybrids I’ve been drinking and where I’m finding them, please check out the list.
That’s a wrap. Thanks for being here. If something in this issue made you think differently about what's in your grocery cart or wine glass, that's exactly what this is about. Forward it to someone who'd appreciate it. See ya next time.