{"id":10924,"date":"2025-11-24T20:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T20:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabisindustryjournal.com\/?post_type=feature_article&amp;p=38029"},"modified":"2025-11-24T20:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T20:02:12","slug":"treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"Treating Cannabis Like A Fine\u00a0Wine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><span>The experience in both wine and cannabis starts with ritual: swirling, inhaling, letting heat or air coax the plant\u2019s chemistry to life. Where wine has long relied on sommeliers to guide that moment, cannabis has spent decades without an equivalent voice to explain how cultivation, curing, and preparation shape what a consumer feels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The emergence of the<\/span> <em><span>Ganjier<\/span><\/em> <span>is an attempt to fill that gap. Created by a group of cultivators, <img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38033 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/> hashmakers, historians, and retailers, including figures like Kevin Jodrey, Swami Chaitanya,<\/span> <span>Nick<\/span> <span>Tanem, and Derek Gilman, the Ganjier Council is designed to professionalize cannabis evaluation and service. Think of it as the cannabis world\u2019s version of the Court of Master Sommeliers: a certification built around sensory training, product knowledge, and the language needed to communicate quality.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Reverence for process is exactly what the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ganjier.com\/\">Ganjier certification program<\/a> aims to formalize. Kevin Jodrey, the renowned cultivator and original architect of the curriculum, describes Ganjiers as interpreters. \u201cGanjiers fit into the conversation as translators, somebody who clarifies language, so that when you say something to me, and I say something to someone else, it means the same thing.\u201d It mirrors the work of sommeliers, a comparison Jodrey makes explicitly: \u201cThat\u2019s really what sommeliers do, they translate wine into language that allows people to understand what to expect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As legalization accelerates and price compression pushes products toward uniformity, this shared language, the ability to turn sensory experience into common understanding, may be cannabis\u2019s most powerful differentiator.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Meet the Experts Teaching the World to Taste Cannabis like Fine Wine<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span>The modern Ganjier began as something far more personal. Jodrey recalls its earliest moment taking shape at home. \u201cThe Ganjier was invented in my kitchen. My son came up with the name, he said, \u2018Dad, you\u2019re a Ganjier, you\u2019re a cannabis culturalist. You\u2019re all things cannabis.\u2019\u201d What started as a family nickname soon resonated more widely. As legalization gained momentum, Green Flower founders Max Simon and Derek Gilman approached Jodrey with a proposal. \u201cThey came to me and said, Hey, Kev, we have an idea that we would like to create a program that highlights the nuances of cannabis in a way that allows the complex world to be brought to light so that customers, new people, consumers can see the picture in a way they haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Shaping that clarity took work. Over several years, Jodrey and a team of eighteen practitioners debated how to define cannabis quality in a way that could stand the test of time. \u201cIt allowed the 18 of us, over the course of\u00a0 7,000 hours in a multi-year period, to brawl it out and determine how to look at something in an objective manner. It was an idea of how to create cannabis connoisseurship that has a hundred-year life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Tanem, a California-based hashmaker and founding Ganjier Council member, remembers how the<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38034 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/> Council ultimately formed around that mission. \u201cDerrick Gilman collected a number of us professionals that had skill sets in different areas throughout the industry, from breeding to cultivation to the law to history to extraction, you name it. The goal was to cover all bases via a program that would teach what quality is in cannabis. \u201cPeople don\u2019t really know how to assess quality, and so that\u2019s a big part of what the Ganjier does,\u201d said Tanem. \u201cWe really give a full background of the industry, from cultivation to law to the history to extraction to customer interaction protocols, etc.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The path cannabis is now traveling mirrors the evolution of other connoisseur markets. Jocelyn Sheltraw, founder of The Budist, a cannabis scoring and education platform, notes that wine, beer, and coffee all matured through codification. \u201cIt\u2019s just understanding how other connoisseur markets have evolved, and really studying the history of how consumers come to appreciate products. Whether you look at wine, beer, or coffee, they all use the same 100-point system created by Robert Parker in the late 1970s and early 1980s.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>She emphasizes that no scoring system gains traction without guidance for interpreting it. \u201cIt took the Sherpas, it took the educators to translate that to consumers across all of those industries.\u201d Competitions and community forums also played a role. \u201cCompetitions were a major part of drawing light on quality, and the oldest wine competition in the United States actually dates back to the 1850s.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Cannabis is now following the same arc, with its own judging culture, from legacy region cups to large-scale events like the upcoming MJBiz Con awards on December 2nd-5th, which bring brands, cultivators, and reviewers under one roof to evaluate products on shared terms. Cannabis connoisseurship is now entering that same phase: a shift from tradition held in pockets to a shared, teachable system of evaluation. The Ganjier is its first attempt at building a unified language.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Training and the Craft of Evaluation<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span>If the origins of the Ganjier reflect cannabis culture\u2019s past, the curriculum represents its future. The<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38035 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"113\" \/> program is designed to function much like formal wine education, combining sensory discipline, technical learning, and service training. Students work through extensive online modules and then take part in in-person instruction led by multiple council members with different palates and professional backgrounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Tanem describes the value of that diversity. \u201cStudents who come through the Ganjier program not only do two days of in-person training, but they also do anywhere from two weeks to two years of online training where they go through all of the different aspects of the industry.\u201d Once students come out for the in-person class, there are four or five instructors or council members who provide different opinions and education. \u201cFor instance, from Swami [Chaitanya], who wants a smoother smoke and a well-cured product he calls vintage, to people like myself who have the ears to the streets,\u201d said Tanem. \u201cWe have a lot of council members that are in retail today, in cultivation, in extraction. Having that variation in how we present what quality is, because quality can be subjective.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A major part of that training is undoing the industry\u2019s fixation on THC percentage. \u201cWe teach away from promoting high THC products,\u201d Tanem says. \u201cPeople want the highest THC, and we really want to educate people against that. We talk about the other volatile compounds, from sulfurs to esters to terpenes. There is a lot more to cannabis than just high THC numbers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The structure for this deeper analysis comes through the Systematic Assessment Protocol, or SAP, the sensory backbone of the curriculum. Jodrey explains it as a guided way to evaluate cannabis in stages. \u201cThe SAP is basically a digital scorecard with criteria that, when you touch the category, allows you to understand what this category is and how we look at it.\u201d First up, according to Jodrey, is aroma, followed by appearance, then combustion or flavor, and then experience. The approach distinguishes between objective traits and subjective preferences. \u201cVery volatile cannabis indicates good storage and good production,\u201d he notes. \u201cBut a variety with low aroma might be perfect for someone who lives with their family, and the smell of pot offends them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even outside the formal Ganjier curriculum, people who cultivate, process, and evaluate cannabis are<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38036 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"131\" \/> running into the same limitation: combustion obscures the very subtleties the SAP is designed to measure. Former cultivator and current PAX Labs VP of Marketing Justin Tacy says this was a constant frustration long before he ever entered the device world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAs a cultivator, it was always frustrating to have people take what I spent years and years developing and just throw it in a bong and rip the whole gram in one go,\u201d said Tacy. \u201cThat gives you the psychoactive effects, but it doesn\u2019t really give you appreciation for the nuances around different terpenes and flavors.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Glassware and devices in cannabis are a crucial vehicle for connoisseurship. The same way wine glass design affects aroma delivery and perception, the tools used to consume cannabis can either sharpen or blunt the sensory experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt [dry air vaporization] really allows you to taste the genetics the way the cultivator intended, and pick up some of those more nuanced effects that only come from vaporizing certain terpenes versus combusting them,\u201d Tacy noted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The point underscores a larger shift within cannabis connoisseurship, which is how you smoke matters. Just as glassware shapes how wine expresses its structure, the way flower is heated determines which compounds rise to the surface and which are muted or lost. That emphasis on controlled, repeatable sensory experience is exactly what the Ganjier SAP aims to formalize.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWine is picking up complexity and notes and creating identification so people can understand,\u201d Jodrey says. \u201cWe provide that, but we also provide other factors that wine does not have, which are the sustainability of aroma and penetration of aroma.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Behind the scenes, the Council built the curriculum piece by piece. \u201cWe broke this thing into pieces: cannabis science, law, history, retail, cultivation.\u201d The team then went and found the people who fit into all those pieces, enabling the creation of the curriculum. \u201cThe Ganjier is a book; we all wrote a couple of chapters each in this book,\u201d said Jodrey. \u201cWe created a common respect that was collaborative, and it was a golden time to create a language that we knew would hold up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That language now feeds into the broader connoisseurship ecosystem. Sheltraw describes the relationship between the Ganjier program and consumer platforms like The Budist. \u201cGanjier is the educational platform, equivalent of the sommelier program. Budist is the commercial platform where you apply that knowledge. Budist would then be the Wine Advocate, or Budist would be Vivino.\u201d She emphasizes the importance of consistent judging methods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The SAP supplies the structure behind those evaluations. \u201cWith the SAP, there are 50 different data<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38046 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"112\" \/> points. You are looking at trichome density, bud texture, and the complexity of flavors and aromas. Just to assess one flower can easily take over an hour.\u201d And at the consumer level, the system becomes more approachable. \u201cAt Budist, we still use that same 100 point system, like all of these other major industries, but simplified for consumers. There are really four key attributes: aroma, appearance, flavor, and effect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Together, these elements turn the Ganjier curriculum into something much larger than a training course. It is a shared methodology, one that moves cannabis evaluation away from potency myths and toward a transparent, structured language of quality.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong>How Ganjiers Will Reshape Retail, Cultivation, and Brand Strategy<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span>The rise of the Ganjier is beginning to reshape how cannabis is bought, taught, and experienced. What started as a sensory certification is now influencing every corner of the industry, from retail counters to events to tourism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe are now having Bud Bars at weddings and events instead of alcohol bars, where Ganjier would be the budtender at a Bud Bar at a wedding,\u201d Tanem said. \u201cWe are also seeing Ganjier in so many different spaces and aspects of the industry from buyers for dispensaries to QC to the head of distro, the head of sales departments, lead cultivation techs, and femmers [A<\/span> <em><span>femmer<\/span><\/em> <span>is someone who carries out the processes used to create feminized cannabis seeds, typically through controlled stress techniques, colloidal silver sprays, or silver thiosulfate (STS) applications that suppress male flower development.].\u00a0 Tanem notes that recreational smokers and industry participants want to become Ganjiers for a whole host of reasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As such, the credential has begun to create its own global community. \u201cEvery single time I go out in the field, whether I am in Hawaii or Barcelona or Berlin or Thailand, I will pull up at an event, and there are other Ganjiers there, and it is a congregation. They know each other; they can build from that,\u201d Tanem says. These gatherings reinforce a shared standard, which then filters back into consumer education.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But even as connoisseurship gains ground, most consumers still operate via narrow decision-making looks built around potency, price, and whatever happens to be familiar. Without time or instruction at the point of sale, people default to what they know, a pattern that obscures the meaningful aspects of quality. Tacy, who spent a decade cultivating flower before joining PAX, sees this as one of the industry\u2019s largest hurdles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe market rushed to easy-to-understand numbers, high THC, weight, and maybe the color of the product, \u201d said Tacy. \u201cThose are driving a lot of the industry versus what\u2019s the value and experience you\u2019re getting for that dollar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The point echoes what Ganjiers confront daily: as long as potency remains a stand-in for quality, the nuances cultivators labor to express remain out of reach for consumers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Jodrey frames the market context driving this need for guidance. Disposable income controls the purchase. Ninety to ninety-five percent of all purchases in cannabis are fundamentally price-driven,\u201d he said. Education becomes the tool that helps consumers choose based on fit rather than strength or discount. Retail environments are already adjusting. \u201cWhat you have to do is create a situation that lets people feel relaxed, and Ganjiers help you understand what is available in the world of cannabis so you can make better choices. That changes entire businesses,\u201d said Jodrey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This vision aligns with the broader consumer landscape that Sheltraw sees emerging. \u201cIt will be very similar to what we see in wine. You are going to see your Ganjier working at cannabis retail, and as tourism evolves, you will see Ganjiers at farms educating consumers.\u201d That presence will be omnichannel. \u201cWherever the consumer is, whether it is digital, social, dispensaries, or farms, we are going to see Ganjiers assisting customers.\u201d Consumer knowledge is limited, and people are doing what they\u2019ve done in the past; consumers are purchasing based on price point and THC level. Professional evaluation helps bridge that gap, and brands are beginning to realize that connoisseurship can also be a strategy. \u201cBrands in cannabis recognize that this can be the impact of what we are doing to get out of this price and potency trap,\u201d says Sheltraw.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In a market where sameness is easy and differentiation is hard, the Ganjier offers something rare: a way to raise the value of cannabis through understanding, story, and experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Cheers!<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span>The same rituals that open a glass of wine or a jar of cured flower remind us that tasting is as much<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38037 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/treating-cannabis-like-a-fine-wine-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/> interpretation as it is sensation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As cannabis moves from prohibition to professionalism, the Ganjier represents the shift from novelty to craft, from a scattered vocabulary to a shared one. Nick Tanem sees that future taking shape as new markets mature and consumers search for guidance on quality. Kevin Jodrey frames it even more directly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe Ganjier is just really meant to create a language, fundamentally a language, that everyone speaks from store to store. So that when you say a strain does this, it translates to that somewhere else. It is language. It is understanding.\u201d In that understanding lies the foundation of cannabis connoisseurship espoused by the Ganjier Council.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Get your Ganjier certificate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ganjier.com\/\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hear more from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AOcHMdidWos&amp;t=4s\">Kevin Jodrey<\/a> on the Inovating Cannabis Podcast.<\/p>\n<p>Hear more from <a href=\"https:\/\/innovating-cannabis-podcast.simplecast.com\/episodes\/156-talking-concentrates-with-nick-tanem\">Nick Tanem<\/a> on the Innovating Cannabis Podcast.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\">\n<div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The experience in both wine and cannabis starts with ritual: swirling, inhaling, letting heat or air coax the plant\u2019s chemistry to life. Where wine has long relied on sommeliers to guide that moment, cannabis has spent decades without an equivalent voice to explain how cultivation, curing, and preparation shape what a consumer feels. The emergence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8461,9290,10853,5334,2254,10851,9,8471,8472,6845,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[8483,9295,10854,5350,4821,10852,8493,8494,6846],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}