Tag: News

• Even if you don't love Champagne, you might enjoy an alternative (more affordable) sparkling wine.
• We spoke to a sommelier who said many people actually prefer prosecco's citrusy, fresh flavor.
• The next time you want a warm, full-bodied red sparkling wine, reach for a bottle of Lambrusco.

It's one of the most celebratory times of the year, bringing an onslaught of toast-filled festivities.

Though Champagne is often the de facto alcohol filling flutes, the popular sparkling French wine isn't ideal for everyone's palate — or budget, particularly when it comes to serving a big group.

Madison Aspinwall, a California-based sommelier, told Business Insider that there are plenty of high-quality, affordable alternatives to real Champagne, which can cost well over $60 per bottle.

In fact, some decent bottles of sparkling wine can be found for less than half that price.

Here are a few of Aspinwall's recommendations you can feel confident about grabbing for your next celebration.

Prosecco can be an affordable alternative to Champagne

Made from Glera grapes in Prosecco, Italy, this sparkling white wine can be a less expensive (but still delicious) swap for Champagne.

"Prosecco is rarely over $30 a bottle," Aspinwall said. "It's made in a totally different style from Champagne, but I find it equally delicious."

She said that many people who try different sparkling wines for the first time actually tend to prefer prosecco over Champagne, finding the former tastes fresher, cleaner, and more citrusy.

For a classic, easy-to-find option, Aspinwall recommends La Marca, an extra-dry prosecco that runs between $15 and $20 for a 750-milliliter bottle.

Brut prosecco is the perfect option if you prefer acidic flavors

Brut prosecco is a solid starter sparkling wine.

"I think a brut prosecco is the best for someone who is just getting into sparkling wines and doesn't like the taste of Champagne," Aspinwall said.

She added that brut is on the lower end when it comes to sweetness (specifically, it has between 0 and 12 grams of residual sugar per liter), giving it a fresher, more acidic taste than other varieties.

Aspinwall told BI that one of her go-to choices is Pizzolato, a brut prosecco. A 750-milliliter bottle typically costs between $20 and $25.

"It tastes amazing, and it's in the most fun bottle with funky packaging," she added.

Fruit-forward Lambrusco is a fitting choice for the holiday season

On the hunt for a sparkling wine that feels special? Turn to Lambrusco, a sparkling Italian red that comes in a range of sweetness levels.

"I think it's perfect for the holiday season because, as a red wine, it has a bit more warmth to it than a prosecco or Champagne," Aspinwall said.

She added that this type of wine tends to have more body, tannins, and fruit-forward flavors, such as cherry, raspberry, and strawberry.

You can also get it in white and rosé variations.

"It can be super complex, unique, and fun to experiment with if you're just getting into sparkling wine," she said, adding that one of her top recommendations is Broletto Lambrusco.

A 750-milliliter bottle typically retails for between $16 and $20, depending on the retailer.

If you love sweet wine, pour yourself some demi-sec prosecco

For those who prefer a very sweet wine, Aspinwall recommended turning to a demi-sec variety.

This type of prosecco has between 32 and 50 grams of residual sugars per liter, meaning it's generally sweeter than a brut prosecco.

"It's perfect for people who are looking for something that's really approachable," she said.

Consider trying a demi-sec variety from La Marca — a 750-milliliter bottle can cost between $15 and $20.

Moscato d'Asti is another sweet sparkling wine that pairs well with dessert

One of Aspinwall's favorite sparkling wines is Moscato d'Asti.

The sparkling white Italian wine, which she described as tropical, fruity, and juicy, pairs well with certain sweet treats.

"I absolutely love Moscato d'Asti with soft-serve ice cream because it's a really cool dessert combination," she told BI. "It has that fruity, delicious tart acidity, but it's also very sweet, so it's super easy for people who are just getting into sparkling wine to enjoy."

Consider picking up Vietti Moscato d'Asti, which retails between $15 and $23 for a 750-milliliter bottle.

• Yelp ranked the most beloved chains in the country according to customer reviews and search volume.
• Popular chains, such as Dave's Hot Chicken, In-N-Out, and Texas Roadhouse, topped the list.
• Lesser-known chains, such as First Watch and bb.q chicken, also ranked highly.

A new ranking of the most popular restaurant chains in the US reveals that both iconic spots and lesser-known favorites are winning over customers.

Yelp ranked the most beloved restaurant chains in the country based on a variety of factors, including average rating, customer reviews, repeat page views, and search volume.

The list, which was released on Tuesday, featured well-known national chains like In-N-Out, Olive Garden, and Chili's, as well as some hot up-and-comers like Dave's Hot Chicken and bb.q Chicken.

Here are the 20 most beloved restaurant chains in America, according to Yelp.

20. Shake Shack

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 48%

Number of locations (2024): 373

19. Jet's Pizza

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 69%

Number of locations (2024): 450

18. Sweetgreen

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 51%

Number of locations (2024): 246

17. Habit Burger & Grill

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 49%

Number of locations (2024): 377

16. Outback Steakhouse

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 51%

Number of locations (2024): 675

15. Chili's

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 51%

Number of locations (2024): 1,209

14. P.F. Chang's

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 50%

Number of locations (2024): 221

13. The Cheesecake Factory

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 48%

Number of locations (2024): 215

12. Denny's

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 64%

Number of locations (2024): 1,334

11. Blaze Pizza

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 63%

Number of locations (2024): 265

10. LongHorn Steakhouse

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 57%

Number of locations (2024): 594

9. Carrabba's Italian Grill

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 59%

Number of locations (2024): 210

8. Olive Garden

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 58%

Number of locations (2024): 923

7. Mountain Mike's Pizza

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 63%

Number of locations (2024): 299

6. Texas Roadhouse

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 57%

Number of locations (2024): 664

5. BJ's Restaurants

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 60%

Number of locations (2024): 218

4. In-N-Out Burger

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 66%

Number of locations (2024): 415

3. First Watch

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 73%

Number of locations (2024): 572

2. bb.q Chicken

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 71%

Number of locations (2024): 208

1. Dave's Hot Chicken

Percent of reviews that were four or five stars: 71%

Number of locations (2024): 245

• Keeper, an AI dating startup, believes its matchmaking tech can pair people with their soulmates.
• The dating company raised $4 million in pre-seed funding last year.
• Keeper shared the most recent version of its pitch deck with Business Insider.

Keeper, an AI matchmaking startup, thinks it can help deliver your "soulmate" to you. And if it can't, it'll let you know.

"We're saying we actually know who could be your soulmate or not," Jake Kozloski, Keeper's CEO, told Business Insider. "We're not going to waste your time and pretend that a hundred thousand of these people could be. We'll tell you no."

Founded in 2022, the dating platform uses layers of algorithms and AI models to match people who sign up for its service. The startup is now disclosing for the first time, exclusively to Business Insider, that it raised a $4 million pre-seed investment in October 2024, led by Lightbank and Lakehouse Ventures. Goodwater Capital and Champion Hill Ventures participated in the round, among others.

Investors "see AI as an inflection point in the dating app landscape" and an opportunity to "disrupt the incumbents," Kozloski said.

Keeper isn't the only startup attempting to shake up the online dating market. Other AI matchmaking apps, such as Sitch and Amata, have raised millions to build next-generation dating apps. Dating app incumbents like Tinder and Bumble are also making plays with AI-powered experiences.

Kozloski said the company's values were another piece of its pitch that attracted some investors.

"They feel like there's a marriage crisis adjacent to the whole Elon Musk fertility crisis stuff that he talks about," said Kozloski, who described Keeper as being "friendly with the pronatalist movement."

Wanting kids, though, isn't a requirement to use Keeper, Kozloski added.

Since launching, Keeper has had more than 1.5 million sign-ups, and about 300,000 of those have made accounts, Kozloski said. Among that pool, there have been a "small number" of matches. Keeper didn't share exactly how many matches it's made, but according to its pitch deck, 10% of dates from its beta version resulted in marriage. With its funding, Keeper has been building out its matchmaking technology over the past year.

Keeper is limited to heterosexual couples right now, and doesn't offer explicit options for different gender identities.

"We basically have to build a new algorithm for homosexual relationships, which we're happy to do and we will do eventually, but for now, we want to get to product market fit with our core product first," Kozloski said. "Frankly, heterosexual relationships, especially for finding life partnership, seems to be a bigger market, a stronger market for us right now."

Making a profile on Keeper is a sit-down process. The initial form to make an account asks for the standard details of many dating apps (like your age or height), as well as academic test scores (including SATs), your career ambitions, salary, and net worth. It even encourages taking an external personality test. After you fill out the initial onboarding questionnaire, there are 13 more steps, ranging from uploading photos to sharing your philosophy on love.

"We don't let our users create their own profiles," Kozloski said. Keeper uses the information it gathers to curate a profile for you.

Kozloski said Keeper uses a non-AI algorithm first to streamline potential matches, focusing on data points like age range initially.

"We use LLMs once we have your top hundred that our other algorithms have identified," he said. "The LLMs are trained on our matchmaking insights that we've learned so far, and so they can narrow down those last hundred and do the final pass of, 'OK, who actually is worth offering among these.'"

Some of the AI matchmaking comes into play when analyzing "general attractiveness" and users' specific attributes, like baldness or hair color, Kozloski said. The startup has also partnered with a team of researchers at Stanford, Kozloski said, who help train the LLMs (Keeper provides anonymized data to the research team).

However, Keeper isn't fully automated, and for the time being, includes human matchmakers in the process. If there's a match, Keeper connects the two people over text message.

The startup has a complicated payment structure with a hefty price tag — but only for men.

Keeper has male users sign a "marriage bounty" that typically costs $50,000 (if the user gets married) and has them pay $5,000 for any dates from the service (the date fees go toward the total bounty cost, Kozloski said).

Read the most recent version of Keeper's pitch deck.

Note: Keeper has shared an updated version of its pitch deck, which it is now sharing with investors, that includes new details since its raise in October 2024. Some details have been redacted.

Keeper claims its AI-powered matchmaking is the 'most accurate'

It touts that 1 in 10 dates lead to engagements

"1 in 10 Keeper first dates have led to an engagement," the slide says.

It highlights the size of the matchmaking market

Keeper describes the matchmaking market as "old school yet shockingly massive," per the slide.

It then says that matchmaking could be enhanced by technology

"With the opportunity to 10x," the slide says. "When technology provides perfect matches, matchmaking will be the best way to meet your partner."

Then, it introduces Keeper's product

"The AI matchmaker that will introduce you to your soulmate on the first match," the slides says. It also includes product imagery.

It showcases how its beta version performed

"Our v1 worked extremely well," the slide says.

It says that 10% of dates lead to marriage.

The deck shows press and social media content about the startup

Keeper showcases how many people have signed up

It says it has had 1.5 million sign-ups. "This makes us the largest pool of any traditional matchmaker," the slides says. It lists competitors like Tawkify, Keeper, Ditto, Sitch, and Known Dating.

Keeper explains its network effect

"Everyone signs up if we deliver soulmates on the first match," the slide says.

"The first mover quickly becomes a monopoly," it says.

Then, it introduces its founders

Here's what the slide says:

Jake Kozloski: Founder, CEO

• Repeat founder with previous exit
• 8 years startup product management and growth roles
• 10 years of dating apps as a user; now happily married to wife Aliia

Toban Wiebe: Co-Founder, Head of AI

• PhD from Penn in economic/statistical modeling of Marriage Markets
• 8 years industry experience in ML/DS, most recently at Instacart and Uber
• Met his wife Dee 10 years ago in grad school via OkCupid

It also lists the researchers the startup is working with

Here are the names of the researchers:

• Michal Kosinski: PhD, Cambridge
• Geoffrey Miller: PhD, Stanford
• Naman Gupta: PhD Student, Stanford
• Ignacio Rios Uribe: PhD, Stanford

Keeper explains why it's raising capital

"We're raising to scale profitable human-in-the-loop matchmaking to $2M in annual revenue," the slide says.

The deck includes its founder's email

As well as an appendix with additional data

The deck includes a slide about marriage rates decreasing

"80% of young singles want to get married," the slide says. "40% actually will." It cites data from Match Group and data scientist Allen Downey.

It then maps out the incumbent dating app landscape

Dating apps are "bad at creating relationships, worth billions," the slide says. "Imagine the value of the first product that's great at it."

It lists matchmaking competitors, too

"Matchmakers can't scale," the slide says.

Keeper shows how its LLM and vision models work

"LLMs and vision models enable scalable matchmaking for the first time in history," the slides says.

It goes into more depth on its tech

"We've built the most accurate process in the world," the slide says.

Here are the steps the slide lays out:

• In-depth preference collection
• Accurately measure all traits
• AI evaluates every pair
• Offer only very strong matches
• Feedback refines future matches

It then explains its pricing model

"We earn more, faster, by aligning with users' incentives," the slide says.

Its current model, which has humans involved in matchmaking, is free for women and costs men $5,000 per date. For male users, the marriage bounty costs $50,000, and the slide says that Keeper has contracted $14 million "so far."

Keeper outlines that in a future model, where the tech is fully automated, dates will cost $250, and the marriage bounty contract will cost $5,000.

• Kate Winslet thinks the term 'nepo baby' is silly, and she tells her kids to ignore it.
• Winslet's directorial debut, "Goodbye June," which is out in December, was written by her son.
• She came to his defense, claiming it would have been made "with or without her."

Kate Winslet thinks the term nepo baby is "silly."

The Oscar winner and mom-of-three told the BBC on Wednesday that her kids, who have followed her into showbiz "aren't getting a leg up."

"There are lots and lots of people in the world whose children go into a similar family business, whether it's being a judge or a lawyer or a doctor," she said. "Part of it actually is teaching them to ignore the white noise of silly terms like nepo baby, which you can't really do anything about."

Winslet, 50, was speaking in an interview promoting her upcoming film "Goodbye June," which marks her editorial debut and will be released in select US and UK theaters December 12, and on Netflix December 24. Her eldest son, Joe Anders, 21, wrote the screenplay.

She said that Anders had expressed concern that people may think the film, which he wrote on a screenwriting course, was picked up only because of his famous parents. But Winslet defended his talent."The film would've been made with or without me. The script is so, so good," she said.

Anders' father is the acclaimed film director Sam Mendes, 60, who was married to Winslet for seven years until their split in 2010. Anders starred alongside his mom in the 2023 movie "Lee," and also appeared in the Oscar-nominated war film "1917," which was directed by his father.

Mia Threapleton, Winslet's 25-year-old daughter, is also a rising star. She had a starring role in Wes Anderson's latest film, "The Phoenician Scheme," which was released in May. It comes after she played Winslet's daughter in the 2022 BAFTA award-winning TV drama "I Am Ruth."

The youngest of Winslet's children, 12-year-old Bear Blaze Winslet, has yet to grace the silver screen, but has already expressed an interest. During a 2021 appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Winslet shared jokingly that at age 7, Bear Blaze told her he wanted "to be an actress."

• Amid the return-to-office push in corporate America, young workers are romanticizing their commutes.
• Commuters who participated in the TikTok trend said it helps boost their morale.
• Licensed therapist Brianna Paruolo said romanticizing can be a positive way to reframe a routine.

When Danielle Pogue hits the pavement each morning for the cross-borough trek to her office in Brooklyn, she relies on two essentials to propel her forward: a perfectly curated Spotify playlist and the mental power to romanticize each step.

"I have perfected the New York City strut," Pogue told me.

Pogue, 27, graduated from college in 2020 and entered the labor force at the height of the pandemic, when working remotely was more necessary than trendy. After moving to New York the following year, she jumped at the chance to work in the office at both postgrad jobs she's held in digital marketing. Part of the reason was the commute.

"It definitely is something that I look forward to now," Pogue said of her 25-minute journey to the office. "I think of the alternative, which would be living really close to my office, maybe having it just be around the corner — and for some reason, that doesn't feel as appealing to me anymore. A lot of that has to do with the routine that I've made for myself."

That routine is a kind of portable daydream: As she navigates her way through foot traffic and train platforms, Pogue might imagine herself as a high-powered executive or a trendy young professional in a movie montage, having her main character moment.

In October, Pogue posted a video of her daily strut on TikTok set to KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See," the song that memorably plays during the opening credits of 2006 movie "The Devil Wears Prada." Pogue captioned the post, "hot tip: romanticize your commute to work by listening to this song & acting like you're in a '90s romcom." It's amassed over 70,000 views and counting.

"Clearly, it's something that people resonate with, and also want to replicate in their own morning routine," Pogue said of why she thinks her post gained traction. After all, romanticizing an existing routine is easy, accessible, and free of charge — perfect for inspiring the online masses.

RTO with an aesthetic twist

Pogue isn't the only woman with a go-getter protagonist like Anne Hathaway's Andy Sachs on her digital mood board. Videos similar to Pogue's are littered across my For You Page on TikTok, with captions like "being employed means getting to act mysterious and romanticize my morning commute," or "romanticizing the commute I dreamed of when I was younger." They're often paired with nostalgic tunes or cinematic pop songs, including "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey, and, of course, "Everything Is Romantic" by Charli XCX.

While the call to "romanticize your life" on TikTok can sometimes lean aspirational, as much of the internet does, devotees reject the implication that romanticizing your life requires buying new things. Rather, the goal is to appreciate what's already in reach.

Brianna Paruolo, a licensed mental health therapist and founder of On Par Therapy, said that while showing off for strangers online can be a "slippery slope" if it leads to a craving for more validation, romanticizing can be a positive way to reframe mundanity.

"When we romanticize, we take notice in the small moments of beauty," Paruolo said. "When you film your morning coffee routine or walk to the subway, you are using your digital lens to train your mental lens to scan for positive experiences rather than functioning on autopilot."

For Pogue, that holds true. "It kind of just sets my day up for success," she said of why she romanticizes her commute, online and otherwise. "If you're dreading your morning commute, you're dreading getting to the office, and then everything that happens after that is more likely to feel a little bit negative."

Although TikTok has been awash in videos about romanticizing everyday life since the early pandemic, videos about romanticizing your commute are part of a newer subgenre whose rise coincides with the recent return-to-office push in corporate America.

Data from Placer.ai, a leading foot-traffic analytics firm, found that office visits nationwide were up about 10% in 2024 compared with 2023. Other stats paint an even starker picture: A McKinsey survey of over 8,000 people across 15 industries found the number of employees working mostly in person, as opposed to mostly remote or hybrid, doubled in 2024 compared to the previous year.

Early indicators suggest these figures continued to grow in 2025. As Business Insider previously reported, July set a post-pandemic record high for office attendance, up 10.7% from July 2024. In September, the so-called "hybrid creep" continued to ramp up, with more and more companies enacting strict RTO policies, including Intel, NBCUniversal, and Starbucks. Earlier this month, Instagram's chief, Adam Mosseri, announced that most US staff would be expected to return to the office five days a week starting in February.

'You might as well find the positive'

Andrea Yamhure Sepúlveda, 25, started her corporate consulting job in January 2023. About two years later, her company began asking employees to spend 60% of their workweek in the office; lately, managers have been sending quarterly reports to recap their employees' in-person stats.

New York-based Sepúlveda, who's also a content creator in her spare time, has taken this sea change in stride. She enjoys filming the morning minutiae — her first cup of tea, the sunrise glow over the Manhattan skyline — and sharing the clips on TikTok like a public gratitude journal.

"It's like, you're going to have to do this anyway, so you might as well find the positive," she said. "If I dread the fact that I have to wake up at 5 a.m. and travel, then it's gonna suck. And then I'm going to have to do it next Monday, and the next Monday."

Maria Lysy, a 25-year-old marketing professional in the Washington, DC, metro area, agreed that casting her commute in a positive light helps boost her morale for the workday ahead.

Lysy said her commuting routine lately has involved listening to pop singer Audrey Hobert, especially her songs "Phoebe" and "Sex and the City," and reminding herself that her younger self would be proud of where she is today. She described this process as "finding the extraordinary in the ordinary."

"It sounds so simple, but I've always dreamed of going to my 'big girl job,'" Lysy said. "I feel like it's so easy to take a negative approach on a lot of things, but it's just as easy just romanticize the littlest things you do. It totally changes your perspective."

• A Manhattan federal jury found Carl Rinsch guilty on seven counts, including fraud.
• Rinsh went to trial over $11 million Netflix gave him for a futuristic sci-fi show.
• Rinsch, who took the stand in his own defense, looked straight ahead as the verdict was read.

A Manhattan federal jury on Thursday found Carl Rinsch guilty on charges that he scammed Netflix out of $11 million in a lavish spending spree.

After less than five hours of deliberation, the jury said it found Rinsh guilty on all seven counts, including fraud, money laundering, and illegal money transmission. He faces up to 90 years in prison, but is expected to be sentenced to far less.

Rinsch, wearing a purple-plaid tie and matching pocket square, looked straight at the judge as the jury foreman read the verdict.

The case centered on the millions of dollars Netflix paid Rinsch to film "White Horse," a sci-fi epic about a world where clone-like beings, after a schism with humankind, create their own society walled off from the rest of the world. Rinsch testified in his own defense earlier this week.

Rinsch — a Ridley Scott protege who previously directed the Keanu Reeves-starring "47 Ronin" — shot footage for "White Horse" on two continents. But by the fall of 2019, he exceeded the $44 million Netflix budgeted for the project and asked for more money.

Through the end of 2019 and early 2020, Rinsch negotiated with Netflix to figure out how to move "White Horse" forward and realize his ambitions. He envisioned a franchise like "Star Wars" and "Game of Thrones," complete with an elaborate fantasy world, that could become part of Netflix's catalogue.

In March of 2020, the streaming service agreed to give Rinsch's production company another $11 million.

Then, everything went wrong.

On the witness stand in Manhattan federal court, he said he believed the bulk of the $11 million was meant to reimburse him for keeping the production of "White Horse" afloat the previous fall, when it had gone over-budget. According to him, Netflix expected him to conduct only "soft pre-production" on a potential second season.

Netflix balked. Former executives testified in the trial that the $11 million was meant to go toward finishing a first season that Rinsch never delivered. According to prosecutors, the entire negotiation for the $11 million was a sham, and Rinsch meant to defraud the company all along.

At closing arguments on Wednesday, Assistant US Attorney David Markewitz presented the jury with a Buzzfeed-style list of "10 Ways You Know Carl Rinsch is Guilty." In a slideshow, he walked them through what he said were Rinsch's contradictory claims — on the witness stand, in emails and text messages, and in prior statements in a civil legal dispute with Netflix — that he said demonstrated Rinsch wasn't telling the truth.

He argued it was absurd to think Rinsch's lavish purchases — like a $439,000 handmade Hastens mattress — could not have possibly been meant for the production of "White Horse." And Rinch's 2021 purchases of Rolls-Royces were insured in his own name, rather than insured by Netflix.

"In a TV show, a mattress is going to be covered by sheets and a blanket," Markewitz told the jury. "No one watching 'White Horse' from home is going to have any idea what is under those linens."

Daniel McGuinness, an attorney representing Rinsch, told the jury that Rinsch never had the "intent" required to find him guilty.

He showed them emails and texts leading up to the March 2020 agreement that he said demonstrated Rinsch's negotiating posture had always been that Netflix owed him about $11 million for reimbursement. Rinsch never said he would spend all the money on additional production for "White Horse," McGuinness said.

In reality, according to McGuinness, the situation was a "contract dispute" based on misunderstandings between Rinsch and Netflix.

"They were talking past each other, and the government has turned it into a nefarious fraud conspiracy," McGuinness said.

This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.

• I'm a certified sommelier, and I always keep a selection of wines on hand to serve my guests.
• You don't need a special reason to enjoy good Champagne or a nice Italian red wine.
• From grocery-store brands to small family-owned bottles, anything goes at my house.

As a certified sommelier, when I entertain, I want to serve the perfect wines to match any meal, occasion, and person.

Whether I'm ordering takeout, making one of my trusty weeknight dishes, or preparing a fancy meal for guests, they expect something delicious in their glasses.

Here are a few of my go-to wines that never fail to please when I'm hosting.

Bubbly is not just for big celebrations or New Year’s Eve.

With many styles to choose from, there's a sparkling wine for every occasion.

I've found that opening a bottle of bubbly for guests makes them feel special, which is what hosting is all about.

With its high acidity, sparkling wine is also perfectly food-friendly — meaning, it pairs quite well with so many bites.

Some of my favorite brands include Gloria Ferrer, a domestic sparkler from California; Alta Langa Bera Brut, an excellent Italian sparkling wine; and Champagne Telmont, when only true French Champagne will do.

My guests rarely turn down a refreshing white wine.

With its palate-cleansing nature, a refreshing white wine pretty much always hits the spot.

If you're eating something spicy (such as Indian, Mexican, or Thai cuisine), it will also help cool your palate between each bite.

Grapes like sauvignon blanc, vermentino, and Chenin blanc are some of my favorites, and you can't go wrong with Teneral Cellars vermentino, William Hill sauvignon blanc, or Hye Meadow Winery Chenin blanc.

Italian reds are a perfect food-friendly choice.

Nothing is cozier than a glass of Italian red wine.

The variety has come a long way from the ubiquitous Chianti served at neighborhood restaurants.

Top-quality Italian reds come from every region of the country now, and it's no surprise that Italian food is the perfect pairing.

A structured Brunello di Montalcino from Castello Banfi pairs well with grilled meats and hearty stews. Super Tuscan wines never let me down, especially if I'm serving them with a spectacular Italian feast.

I also enjoy the wines from Tenuta Argentiera in Bolgheri, and Madrevite wines from Umbria, which are made with indigenous Italian grapes.

Ending the night with something sweet is a nice treat.

I like ending the night with a dessert wine when I entertain.

Port reigns supreme and can please a wide range of palates.

Fonseca Bin 27 Reserve Ruby port is a classic red — perfect on its own or with any chocolate-based dessert. Taylor Fladgate's 10-Year-Old tawny port is sweet with a nice balance of nuttiness for those looking for more complexity.

Vin de Paille is also a great dessert wine for those who appreciate a good white. It's made from raisins, which gives it a sweeter, more concentrated flavor.

Alta Colina Winery and Tablas Creek Vineyard in California make two of my favorite bottles.

I like to have a nonalcoholic wine on hand.

Nonalcoholic wines are one of the fastest-growing varieties in the industry.

If my guests are abstaining — for any reason — I want to have something available for them to enjoy as well.

Fre makes great non-alcoholic white wines like pinot grigio. Noughty has a delicious nonalcoholic sparkling wine that I think tastes as good as the real thing, and Kally sells bottles made from classic wine grapes, like chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.

This story was originally published on November 19, 2024, and most recently updated on December 11, 2025.

• Rivian on Thursday unveiled a road map to make its cars fully autonomous and AI-powered.
• The plans include a silicon chip made in-house and an AI voice assistant.
• Rivian is also unveiling a subscription model for its driver-assistance system akin to Tesla FSD.

Rivian is all-in on autonomous driving, stepping deeper into a territory Tesla has long positioned itself to dominate.

On Thursday, at Rivian's R&D office in Palo Alto, the EV maker unveiled a road map to develop autonomous-driving capabilities for its future lineup of vehicles, including new hardware for the highly anticipated R2 — Rivian's cheapest car to date.

That road map includes a new silicon chip, designed in-house, that will power Rivian's next-generation hardware and support self-driving functions. The new hardware is expected to ship with R2 by the end of 2026, Rivian said.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe has been hinting at autonomous ambitions in recent years. However, since the company's first shipment of vehicles in 2021, Rivian's advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) software — Driver+ and the Rivian Autonomy Platform — has been more akin to Tesla Autopilot than Full Self-Driving Supervised. Tesla's Autopilot provides lane-centering and adaptive cruise control, while FSD can recognize traffic lights, conduct turns, and drive to a destination under constant driver supervision.

Thursday's announcement deepens Rivian's rivalry with Tesla as both companies have expressed goals of fully autonomous driving and licensing their software platforms to other automakers.

Rivian's partnership with Volkswagen, announced last year, was a clear first shot at those licensing ambitions. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently balked on X that no automaker wanted to license FSD.

Here are four ways Rivian is taking a page out of Tesla's playbook.

In-house chips

Rivian has been using a combination of Nvidia and Qualcomm Snapdragon chips to power various vehicle functions, including driver-assistance and infotainment systems.

Now, the company is turning to in-house silicon to power its next-generation autonomous driving hardware.

"At the core of Rivian's technology roadmap is the transition to in-house silicon, designed specifically for the vision-centric physical AI," the company said.

A Rivian spokesperson told Business Insider that the chips will be manufactured by TSMC.

Tesla began a production shift toward in-house chips in 2019 and has since released two iterations, AI3 and AI4. Musk has said that Tesla's next-generation chip, AI5, will be 40 times better than its predecessor.

Rivian's "Gen 3 Autonomy" hardware is under validation and is expected to be shipped with R2 by the end of 2026, the company said.

Going fully autonomous

With the new chips, Rivian's explicit goal is to achieve full autonomy — that's Level 4, or the kind of self-driving technology seen in Alphabet's Waymo, in which driver supervision is not required.

Musk has already made full autonomy Tesla's north star, pledging to turn every personally-owned Tesla into a robotaxi that can generate revenue.

The Tesla CEO's goals have been met with considerable skepticism, particularly due to the company's decision to abandon lidar, a sensor that many industry leaders consider essential for safety and redundancy in self-driving cars.

Rivian, for its part, plans to incorporate lidar into the R2 vehicle. The sensor appears to be installed within the car, just above the middle of the windshield.

A Rivian spokesperson told Business Insider that the company collaborated with a third party on the "exterior design" of Rivian's "lidar implementation."

The company did not share a timeline for launching fully autonomous driving.

In the near term, Rivian will update its ADAS with hands-free assisted driving capability. The feature won't be functional on every road, according to a press release.

Rivian said it will be available on "over 3.5 million miles of roads across the USA and Canada" and can operate "off-highway on roads with clearly painted lines."

FSD-like subscription model

Rivian is following Tesla's FSD subscription model for what it's calling "Autonomy+."

The software will launch "early 2026" and be priced at $49.99 a month or $2,500 for a one-time purchase.

Tesla's FSD is $99 a month or $8,000 up front.

Rivian said the software will be continuously updated. The "trajectory" for the feature will be "point-to-point" navigation — where users type in a destination, and the car drives itself just like FSD — as well as eyes-off driving capabilities and "personal L4" capabilities, according to the automaker.

The Rivian spokesperson told Business Insider that "hundreds of millions of miles contribute to the development of Autonomy+."

"This data is comprised of samples from around the US and Canada year-round, capturing diversity in both geography and seasonality," the spokesperson said.

AI voice assistant

Musk announced in July an integration of xAI's Grok in Tesla vehicles, providing a chatbot that drivers can talk to and, more recently, ask for directions.

Rivian will be following a similar playbook with "Rivian Assistant," an AI voice interface that will be "model-agnostic," according to the automaker.

"Our framework allows us to orchestrate different models and choose the best one for the task," a Rivian spokesperson said.

The company said in a press release that the AI assistant can connect to third-party apps and will start with the integration of Google Calendar.

The AI assistant can also assist with vehicle diagnostics and control certain vehicle functions, such as activating the car's seat heaters.

The feature will be shipped early 2026 on Gen 1 and Gen 2 R1 vehicles.

• Private markets are all in on digital infrastructure, and they don't see any short-term concerns.
• At the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference, they explained why they're bullish on the sector.
• But they also explained that lease renewals are an area of concern facing an uncertain future

Concerns of an AI bubble may be mounting, but at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference on Wednesday, the biggest private investors were bullish on their own investments.

Blackstone President Jon Gray said it was the firm's biggest moneymaker. Ares CEO Michael Arougheti said that the firm's international data center investments are accelerating ahead of expectations and boosting revenue expectations. Blue Owl co-CEO Doug Ostrover said the firm is "incredibly bullish" on its own data center investments.

All signs point to a continued investment boon.

"If you subscribe to our worldview that bringing superintelligence at scale at very low cost is going to be transformative, you try to figure out — how can I invest in that and take the least amount of risk?" Gray said.

Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said that no matter where he is in the world, the world's biggest users of "compute" (data center capacity) tell him they need more of it.

"When are they going to get more compute?" Rowan said. "No time soon, because there are natural limits and there are energy limits and there are regulatory limits and zoning and everything else."

Ostrover said he has "never seen a market" with this level of supply-demand imbalance, and he sees "demand accelerating," but he doesn't "see the supply increasing."

However, behind the excitement, the industry's biggest investors are mulling over the risk they can't capture right now — whether leases for these data centers will be renewed 15 to 20 years from now.

Rowan, looking at the present situation with his "credit hat" on, said, "The risk I'm prepared to take is lease-up risk," Rowan said. "The risk I'm not prepared to take is renewal risk."

Rowan said he has a chart on the wall of his office that compares different big consulting firms' projections of energy usage in 2030, and the "spread is like a child throwing darts."

"The experts in this have no idea on energy use, much less chip use, compute, the impact of quantum." Rowan said. "Do I really want to, with my credit hat on, take renewal risk?"

The answer is no, and Rowan said there are plenty of ways for a credit investor to make money without taking renewal risk. In equity, you're betting on renewals, with the possibility of massive upsides or the "chance of losing everything."

"There will be both great fortunes made and lost in the equity of data centers," Rowan said.

Lease quality

One way to make those bets a little safer is to vet who you're betting on.

Blackstone, a major infrastructure investor, is only betting on "long-term lease data centers where you don't put a shovel in the ground until you have a 15-plus year lease with a very large market cap company."

Other potential bets include the power behind the AI revolution. It may be true that projections of power usage in 2030 are disparate, but they're probably all up and to the right.

"I can't come up with a scenario where we're not using significantly more power five years from today," said Gray.

One way to do it is to sign favorable leases with the best tenants. Blue Owl has a large "triple-net-lease" business, an industry term for commercial leases where taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs are paid by the tenant, instead of the landlord.

Usually, Ostrover said, these leases are to solid businesses like Walgreens or Cracker Barrel, with 3% annual increases over 15 to 20-year leases. They're investment-grade tenants, around BBB credit, and have generated "in excess of 20% return in that product."

Now, they get those same terms with A or AA-credit tenants.

"So now, we're faced with an opportunity where instead of working with Walgreens, Cracker Barrel, firms like that, we can go to Microsoft, Meta, Google, Apple, the biggest companies in the world, signing identical 20-year leases," Ostrover said.

That way, even if they can't renew a lease, they're making their money.

"The way we look at it to our downside is even if the facilities are worth zero at the end of their lives, we can still make a teens return," Ostrover said.

A Blue Owl spokesperson told BI that the firm's "expectation" is that there'll be "meaningful residual value" at the end of a lease.

• Bob Iger said Disney's new deal with OpenAI will let the company harness the tech to engage younger audiences.
• Disney and OpenAI struck a licensing pact that lets Sora users access Disney characters.
• Iger said he sees Disney+ users being able to ultimately use Sora on the streaming platform itself.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says his company's major licensing deal with OpenAI is all about establishing a foothold in a new realm of entertainment and engaging younger audiences.

The licensing agreement gives ChatGPT and OpenAI's Sora video tool access to Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader. Disney is also investing $1 billion in the AI company and becoming a "major customer."

Speaking on CNBC about the deal with OpenAI's Sam Altman on Thursday, Iger said it gives Disney a chance to get in on a fast-growing technology.

"It gives us an opportunity, really, to play a part in what is really a breathtaking, breathtaking growth in essentially AI and new forms of media and entertainment," Iger said.

Iger said the deal also fulfills a longtime desire by Disney to put user-generated content on its Disney+ streaming platform. Disney initially plans to put select videos created on Sora onto Disney+ to increase engagement with users, especially younger ones, and ultimately, let them create such videos on the platform itself.

"That's a big step for us," he said.

Disney has long been highly protective of its famous characters and storylines, and Iger is widely seen in Hollywood as a champion of the creative set. But like other entertainment players, Disney has an engagement problem. The time people spend on streaming has stayed essentially flat over the past few years, despite increased spending on content. The bet with OpenAI is that the deal can get people to spend more time on Disney platforms by giving them more ways to play around with its famous franchises.

Iger has also long positioned the company as pro-technology, and he said, in reference to the OpenAI deal, that he'd rather participate in technology than be disrupted by it.

"We think this is actually a way for us to be part of these developments, as opposed to being harmed by them," he said.

Altman added that the demand for Disney characters, in particular, is "off the charts" and that he saw the deal enabling people to do things like putting themselves in a lightsaber scene from "Star Wars" or creating a custom birthday video for their kid using the Buzz Lightyear character.

Iger said the deal is also a way for Disney to participate in the big rise in user-generated short-form video on social-media platforms.

AI firms have been "frenemies" to media companies, as many in Hollywood are concerned about how they use copyrighted material and the threat that they could undermine the creative process. Iger said the OpenAI deal is good for creators rather than a threat.

"This does not in any way represent a threat to the creators at all. In fact, the opposite," Iger said. "I think it honors them and respects them, in part because there's a license to be associated with it."

Disney said the agreement does not include any talent likeness or voices and that OpenAI would have guardrails in place to make sure Disney's IP was used in a safe way.

In June, Disney, along with Comcast's NBCUniversal studio business, sued AI company Midjourney, claiming its tech created unauthorized copies of works ranging from Star Wars to The Simpsons. Midjourney denied the claims in its legal response. That suit is ongoing.