What does it take for a physician to turn a personal interest into one of the most impressive wine collections in the country? In this week’s episode, Mike Watts, MD, FSIR, shares how a four-day honeymoon in Napa sparked a passion that led to over 1,000 hours of sommelier training and a wine cellar valued at $248,000.
He explains how a professor’s wine shop nudged him beyond casual drinking, why White Burgundy still tops the hierarchy of fine wines, and how the history of the Mission grape shaped Napa’s earliest vintages. Mike also breaks down the NDA wine market, where top bottles are sold to protect brand prices, the pitfalls of auctions, and why wineries sometimes hold back their best years.
🎧 If you’ve ever wondered what collectors chase at auctions, why sommeliers obsess over Burgundy, or which wines under $15 to avoid, this episode is for you.
02:43 First encounters with wine during medical school
04:29 Honeymoon in Napa and realizing wine is science, art, and agriculture
06:31 Discovering Burgundy and why White Burgundy is considered the best in the world
13:07 Studying wine like radiology: how tasting follows a diagnostic flow sheet
24:18 From hobbyist to 1,000 hours of sommelier training
36:20 Miguel’s wine and the sketchy Texas garage pickup story
42:57 NDA wines and the hidden economy of scarcity and secrecy
50:20 Why the world’s best wines aren’t red
55:00 Inside a $248K wine cellar and what it takes to build one
57:10 What causes wine headaches (and it’s not sulfites)
💡 Who Should Listen
This episode is for wine lovers curious about rare bottles and auctions, sommeliers looking to sharpen their craft, collectors building a cellar, and anyone who enjoys learning the stories and economics behind fine wine.
About Mike Watts, MD, FSIR
Mike Watts, MD, FSIR, is an interventional radiologist at the Vascular Institute of Atlantic Medical Imaging, dedicated to providing the highest level of service through clinical excellence and a commitment to patient and family-centered care. He is also a Partner at the Vascular Institute of Atlantic Medical Imaging in southern New Jersey.
Dr. Watts graduated from Colgate University in 2002 with a major in Chemistry. He attended the University of Buffalo for his medical training, earning his MD in 2006, completed a surgical internship and radiology residency at the Cleveland Clinic in 2011, and his fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. Dr. Watts has specialized in advanced peripheral arterial disease techniques, minimally invasive cancer treatments, venous disease, and the management of portal hypertension. He has been invited to speak on these topics at multiple regional, national, and international conferences.
Committed to education, he acted as the Interventional Radiology fellowship director and the University of Pennsylvania and created one of the first Interventional Radiology residencies in the country. His devotion to hands-on teaching of complex techniques has driven him to continuous improvement through a commitment to life-long learning and innovation of novel procedural techniques.
Since 2016, he has been committed to limb preservation, treating CLI on a full-time basis using advanced and innovative techniques to bring unsurpassed quality of care to patients throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Outside of medicine, Dr. Watts has invested over 1,000 hours in wine education at the Wine School of Philadelphia, achieving Level 5 certification and building a personal cellar valued at $248,000.
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