Orange – Pickleball – The Vice – $24.99

Wine Name: Pickleball
Producer: The Vice
Price: $24.99
Date Purchased: April 1, 2025
Store: Hell’s Kitchen Wines & Spirits (formerly 54 Wines & Spirits)
Location: 754 10th Ave, New York, NY 10019

A real lemon... and a candle. 

        Doing your LLC taxes in New York State while your accountant “circles back” from a time zone away should come with hazard pay. So when I spotted Pickleball, an orange wine by a brand ominously named The Vice, I thought: here’s my reward for surviving Schedule C hell.

        But then I remembered I hate Pickleball. Everything about it. A sport invented by three suburban dads in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington — allegedly named after a dog, or possibly a boat, depending on which sundrenched NPR segment you believe. It’s tennis rebranded for people who post aerial shots of their avocado toast and call it content. Derivative, noisy, and somehow both athletic and aggressively not.

        Sadly, the wine lives up to its name. It’s a Viognier dressed up as an orange, but doesn’t commit. Sweet, soft, Pinot Grigio energy. No real funk, no structure — just vibes, and not the good kind. I even tried to fix it with ice, based on advice from a woman I sat next to on a JetBlue flight (she said it “unlocks the layers”) and I’m still mad at her.

        This wine is to orange wine what Pickleball is to tennis: a watered-down, overhyped lifestyle accessory. Made for launch party gift bags and yuppie rooftop coolers, not actual sipping. A miss.

-John

😑Taste: 2/5 – Flat and sweet without the depth you’d expect from an orange.

🧀Vibe: 2/5 – Feels like a product designed to be ‘liked’ on Instagram more than enjoyed IRL.

🆒Label Coolness: 4/5 – Clean and design-forward, I’ll give it that.

💸Value: 2/5 – $24.99 for this? You’re paying for branding, not the bottle.

🙅Where You’d Drink It: On a coworker’s roof, pretending you enjoy small talk.

🍭Dryness Scale: 2/5 – Definitely on the sweeter end.

🦥Effervescence Scale: 1/5 – Still as the F train on a Sunday.

Final Verdict:

❌PASS — Right into the trash. Or better yet, regift it to someone who thinks a charcuterie board is a personality.