Extremely Hot Dad with a Pickaxe

Musings on the thirst trap that was so much more (read to the end for the pic!).

Oct 06, 2025

I had unfollowed most of the boring wine accounts years ago. No offense, but… yawn. Which is why it was even more alarming to feel my nipples harden (!) as I scrolled past — stop; scroll back up! — the shirtless and jacked, lightly tattooed, silvering father bent over a pickaxe. His elementary-aged son watches obediently with a shovel, and the background is peppered with head-trained vines before a perimeter of trees that don’t quite hide a steeple.

Um. Moist.

Obviously a wine professional did not post this, I mused. Perhaps AI has finally created something I’m very interested in, but if it WAS a real person or wine account… hi, where had their content been all my life?!

I glanced at the poster’s handle: Kermit. Lynch. Wine?!?!?! As in, Kermit Lynch, old-school French and Italian importer très prestigieux et sérieux.

“Did not expect to be so profoundly turned on by a Kermit post 😳🙃🥵,” I commented before retreating to my… er… bedroom. Or something. A week later and my comment’s got 30 likes and counting. I am clearly not alone. (Actually all of the comments are well worth reading 😂)

I kept coming back to the post, not just to gawk, but to really analyze its enchantment. I peered closely at the edges for signs of AI generation or something staged. But no, this was real, and it was precisely what the wine industry was lacking. I even finally got around to reading the caption:

Gamay lovers, rejoice! The first of our 2024 crus Beaujolais have landed, and as you’ll see with the new releases from Charly Thévenet, it is a vintage to get VERY excited about. The conditions favored the kind of delicate, aromatic wines loaded with lip-smacking fruit that cement this region’s status as undisputed champion of the “light red” category.

In this 📸 by @skoffupclose, Charly teaches his son, Malo, to plant new vines amid an old parcel of Morgon.

Find Charly’s wines and much more goodness in our September newsletter!
#morgon #beaujolais #inspiringthirst

It was brilliant. A vintage to get “VERY excited about,” indeed, from one of Kermit’s iconoclastic Gang of Four producers who positively redefined Beaujolais. It was exactly the kind of thing the wine industry needs and deserves and has nowhere near enough of.

Make no mistake: Charly is certifiably HOT. Witness:

Workout Magazine’s Most Beautiful CrossFitters (keep scrolling, you won’t mind)

Indigo Wine’s Thévenet bio (scroll to pic 3)

Roberson Wine’s profile of Thevénet (scroll… waaaait for it…!)

But sexy is just sexy. None of those photos quite capture what Gail Skoff (incidentally and not irrelevantly, she’s Kermit’s wife!) was able to with this absolute thirst trap. And when I say “thirst trap” I don’t mean it in a derogatory or illegitimizing way. I mean, seriously, that the photo is brilliant and inspires real thirst, not just for Gamay but for more. Because what I’m realizing fascinates and captivates and enthralls and enamors me the most is that the photo literally, gorgeously, provocatively showcases everything I care about — everything that matters to me about wine AND humanity. And that doubly turns me on: both in a frankly and surprisingly sexual way (oof, those biceps!) but also in a “this is the meaning of life” kind of way, and I think that’s the genius of the photo. It captures the physicality and sensuality of wine, the literal grounding, rooting nature of it, its slowness and its inescapably manual component… things that are so sorely lacking in our world today. It captures tangible and essential generational knowledge — no screens, no modern technology, just shovels and pickaxes and boots in the dirt — being passed on to our precious and breathtakingly innocent youth. It captures caring for one another, nurturing and protecting and loving, the spirituality and resiliency of it all.

It is profoundly hot. I am obsessed and I want a poster. Or maybe a calendar. Maybe I will commission one. Gail, are you available to shoot? Who should we photograph? (Please post in the comments; asking for a friend.) Maybe we can sell it and save the wine industry from its stuck-up and sinking suffocation. I definitely feel like we could get more people ~~coming~~ I mean buying wine if we posted more pictures like this.

Alright, that’s all. A picture is worth 1,000 words and I’ve already written 748. Enough. Here’s the photo. I hope it makes you, like me, very thirsty. Pass it on. And sheesh, buy some ‘24 Beaujolais from Kermit hey? I know I am.