Wine, much like design, has long been governed by tradition — a world of rigid hierarchies, arcane language, and a reverence for Eurocentric canons. But what happens when someone approaches wine not as a gatekeeper, but as a storyteller? Enter Ren Peir, a queer Asian-American sommelier and community organizer whose current residency as Wine Director at Brooklyn’s Nin Hao is not only shaking up the by-the-glass list, but reimagining what hospitality can feel like when it’s built with care, joy, and cultural complexity at its core.
Hospitality, like design, is most powerful when it tells the truth about who we are.
Photos by Mary Kang
Peir’s new wine list, rich with bottles from woman-owned and underrepresented producers across Eastern Europe and the Middle East, doesn’t just challenge the idea of what “good” wine is; rather, it invites us into a broader, more inclusive conversation about taste, identity, and access. Her perspective is both deeply personal and radically generous, rooted in lived experience with chronic pain, diasporic nostalgia, and queer community-building. I had the pleasure to ask Peir her definition of “queering the wine list,” pairing orange wine with Taiwanese street food, and why hospitality, like design, is most powerful when it tells the truth about who we are.
You describe your approach as “queering the wine list.” What does it mean to you, and how does it show up in the textures, regions, and producers you’ve chosen for Nin Hao?
To me, queering anything in life is about finding alternate ways in and alternate structures of operating. For queer people, that’s how we survive; we create our own family structures when our biological ones ostracize us; we find different ways to commune and gather; we always find a way and many times, what we end up creating is even better. So queering wine to me is about finding access points that work for folks who might not see themselves represented in wine, or it’s about highlighting wines that are just as good, if not better than the canonical ones. An example of this would be Heya Wines from Lebanon, a woman-run and produced winery that makes gorgeous wines despite so many factors preventing them from doing so. Or Benedek Pince, showing how a classic grape like Pinot Noir can shine on Hungarian terroir.
Photos by Alex Joseph Photography
As a former tech professional turned sommelier, how did you navigate the leap between such seemingly disparate worlds, and what lessons from tech do you find yourself applying in wine hospitality?
Honestly, jumping into wine felt so familiar to me. There’s endless learning to be had, and as someone who came from a very academically rigorous upbringing, I feel extremely comfortable navigating the unknown and doing everything I can to soak up information. So in many ways, being in wine school and learning is a comfort zone for me.
Often in tech, we prioritize getting a minimum viable product out there, testing and learning, then iterating. I feel this foundation helped me launch BABE Wine Bar. I have a problem with perfectionism, but coming from tech, I knew I needed to just get the idea out there. I’m so glad I did because almost a year later, we’ve continued to iterate and really grown a beautiful community.
I’m particularly drawn to wines from these “overlooked” regions because my personal ethos is to always push against the Western lens.
Photos by Alex Joseph Photography
Your list features wines from regions like Lebanon, Georgia, and Hungary—places often overlooked in traditional wine programs. What draws you to these producers, and how do you think geography can inform storytelling on a menu?
I’m particularly drawn to wines from these “overlooked” regions because my personal ethos is to always push against the Western lens. As someone who grew up in two disparate cultures (that of the US and of Taiwan), I’m able to see just how biased the Western perspective is. And to that extent, why are we so enamored with French and other “classic” wines? Why are we ignoring the fact that winemaking itself begins in these places we “overlook”? What can we gain from tasting more of these wines that come from the longest lineages we know of? If every bottle of wine is an opportunity to learn about a family’s history, a land’s prehistoric geology, a country’s lineage, then shouldn’t these countries get their due spotlight in Western culture?
Photos by Alex Joseph Photography
BABE Wine Bar has been described as a joyful, accessible pop-up for queer wine lovers. How do you design spaces — literal and emotional — that center care, especially for those historically excluded from wine culture?
From a literal perspective, my business partner and I are very intentional about the physical spaces we create. We think about the number of bodies in a space, we think about accessible seating and walkways, options for masking and non-alcoholic wines, and more.
It’s harder to talk about how we design our spaces emotionally, though, but if I had to pin it down, I think it’d be because both my business partner and I are very strong in our beliefs and who we want to create spaces for. We both center and prioritize queer women of color, trans people of color, and nonbinary people of color. And because we feel this to our core, I think it naturally comes out emotionally in our spaces.
Photos by Alex Joseph Photography
You’ve spoken about tasting as a grounding, healing practice in the context of chronic pain and disability. How has your relationship to wine evolved as both an art form and a means of self-connection?
Tasting for me started out as a way to slow down and connect to the physical present. My body is almost always in a degree of pain, so my mind is either so hyper-focused on the pain or it’s completely disconnected. As I’m reflecting on where I’ve come in my wine journey, I’m finding that wine continues to teach me lessons. While wine is still a meditative practice for me, it’s also become a vehicle to build confidence in myself. When I first started working at Flatiron Wines & Spirits, I was scared and too shy to share my thoughts as we all tasted bottles. What if I’m wrong? What if they all laugh at me? My confidence didn’t happen overnight, but if I look at where I’m at now, I’m pleasantly surprised by my disregard for what other people think. Every opportunity that has come my way has been an affirmation of what’s existed inside me all along. And I have wine to thank for that.
Photos by Alex Joseph Photography
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