Wine improves with age. I know I've read that somewhere ...

20 years ago, my wife and I saved a young, inexpensive bottle of Peninsula Vineyards cabernet after our first vacation together. The bottle followed us home, and we saved it hoping to memorialize something epic later in life – a nostalgic symbol of our life, well-lived. 

But, for years, the bottle sat tucked in a dark, warm cabinet with bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. When we moved, it lived in a new cabinet, gathering new dust. We even debated if the special occasions of the year warranted finally opening the bottle and committing it to a decanter. 

Years passed, children arrived ... life was busy and frantic. Jobs came, jobs went. Tiny apartments became big houses. Health scares became health blessings. And so it went like that for years, but nothing we encountered seemed big enough to open that bottle of wine.

Meticulously aged wine deserves that kind of reverence, after all. 

A few years ago, she accepted a career-changing position with a big company. I’m not sure why this was the big event, but it felt right at the time. She’s had big jobs in the past, but something about this one seemed different – transformational. So we pulled the wine off the shelf and committed it to a decanter. 

I've read a lot about aged wine. 50-year-old port wines sell for $500. A 20-year-old cabernet must be explosively good, I thought. 

Here’s the thing about a cheap cabernet, rested for 20 years. It smells like a barnyard filled with wet dogs. The dogs are hungry, and they’re all eating sauerkraut and rotten eggs. Not everything aged … is better. Sometimes, that shiny new bottle of wine was perfect in the beginning.

We love Hillsong Worship’s “New Wine” because it reminds us to return to the altar with a fresh perspective. It’s a call to embrace surrender and renew because “In the crushing, In the pressing, you are making new wine.” And in the process of God’s tireless work, we’re being continually transformed. 

The product is something completely new. Enjoy our amazing worship team – Aly Dyer, and Philip Meadows!