Meg Maker is a writer curious about nature, culture, food, wine and place. Her award-winning work appears in her own publication, Terroir Review, and other trade and lifestyle outlets, and has won praise in the New York Times, Washington Post, Jancisrobinson.com and elsewhere. She is also a fine artist, illustrator, lecturer and educator, and serves as Chair of the Circle of Wine Writers. Find her at megmaker.com.
How did you come to wine, and to wine writing?
I became interested in wine about 20 years ago when, coincidentally, I was completing a master’s degree in creative writing, developing personal essays and creative nonfiction pieces about nature, culture and place. Wine as a topic seemed limitless, expansive and difficult — something I could learn about by writing about. Plus, it tapped into my decades-long interest in ecology, agriculture and natural systems. In my twenties, I wanted to become an environmental educator. Which, on reflection, sort of ended up happening through wine.
Describe your approach to wine writing.
I write in a spiral rather than a line. It starts with an idea, a question, something I need to prove or disprove. There is background research, which may include travel, tasting, interviews (and transcription) and reading. I refine my ideas, build a reference folder and start an outline. I begin the structure of the story, often writing sections that get stitched together later. I do more research, read more, contemplate. If it’s a piece about a region or style, I think about the larger story. If it’s a personality-driven piece, I listen for voice. I write until I think it’s done, after which follow rounds (plural) of fact-checking and editing.
I work alone, mostly, so can’t reap the benefits of another set of professional eyes. (Even so, few publications have fact checkers now, so writers are 100% on the hook for both artistry and accuracy.) A lot of material ends up on the cutting room floor, because everything in the final draft should be in service of whatever I’m trying to say. Kill your darlings.
If I’ve done my job, even my sources will learn something new about their wine, their place, their relevance. Or at least think, Yes, that’s true.
What is one thing you’d like your readers to learn from your writing about wine?
Wine is a lens on culture.
Why is the interconnection of nature and wine important? How is your worldview unique?
Wine is one of the handful of foods that hew close to nature. The raw material undergoes a transformation, but the results retain nature’s signature. Often the transformation of the source material is a fermentation, a process kicked off by microbes to make it safer, more delicious and more self-stable. I call these “terroir foods”: wine, honey, tea, syrup, cheese, coffee and chocolate are other examples.
So, grapes make themselves, but wine doesn’t. We humans guide the transformation from vine to cup, encouraging or discouraging certain transformations, or just standing back. The less we do, the more the results let us taste origin, taste place. Over millennia, we’ve baked these approaches and philosophies into our food cultures, our traditions, our histories. Wine speaks to the dialectic between nature and culture.
Tell us about your current focus on the language of wine. What do you hope to achieve?
I’ve actually been writing about the language of wine at least since 2013. Last year, I was asked to chair a panel at Unified Symposium about wine lexicons, which have been critiqued as exclusionary, and initially my interest centered on concerns about social justice and inclusivity. But my research has since expanded to the history and evolution of tasting language writ large.
Fifty years ago, wine commentary was looser, more about a wine’s character than its organoleptic and olfactory qualities. Think of the work of Broadbent and Lichine and Peynaud and Prial. In response, some scholars, especially Amerine and Noble at UC Davis, made attempts to tighten things up. So did the credentialing programs, especially as wine became professionalized, with certifications requiring strict memorization and regurgitation. Soon popular reviewers, Parker among them, started winning fans for lavish, flavor-forward notes. That style made the leap from criticism to wine writing and then became ubiquitous in wine marketing, too, which had the effect of impressing upon newcomers that a mastery of wine language was essential for purchasing and enjoyment. Ironically, the original impetus toward Parker’s writing style was populist, yet it still managed to alienate a lot of people.
Right now, I advocate for a big-tent approach: diversification (each person brings their own reference frame to wine) and personalization (each person has their own way to talk about wine). I also strongly encourage wine communicators to look beyond wine’s olfactory dimensions to find other things to say that are arguably more interesting; tasting notes are boring to read and even more boring to write. And I encourage everyone to expand their catchment area, reading (and watching and listening to) a diverse array of commentators and really listening to what they’re saying about wine from the framework of their experience.
What other projects are you developing now?
I also trained as a fine artist and maintain an active studio practice. Lately. I have been producing visual narratives and illustrations about wine culture. I find it brings me closer to my subject and lets me emphasize things that can’t be said in words.
Separately, I’m working on a theory about how wine became modern, when it became postmodern, and whether it’s now tipping into metamodernism. Modernity is partly about individual agency, an artist breaking free from the strictures of traditional processes and norms to assert their own aesthetic vision. In wine, that kicked into high gear after phylloxera, then accelerated after the world wars and subsequent technological modernizations. In the late 20th century, winemakers’ thumbprints became more vivid, and the market rewarded individuality and innovation. Today, largely due to climate chaos, we see efforts to rediscover ancient technologies, but those who embrace these approaches are embedded in the modern zeitgeist, so the effort is more postmodern than retrograde. I’m particularly interested in how the natural wine movement is emblematic of that shift.
If you weren’t writing about wine for a living, what would you be doing?
I don’t write about wine for a living. My income has derived principally from consulting on editorial, digital and communications strategy, sometimes to wine businesses and publications but mostly to educational, museum, arts and nonprofit institutions. I have not discovered a way to make a meaningful contribution to my family’s net worth through wine writing.
Is it not possible to make a living as a wine writer today?
There are few or no staff positions left, and freelance paydays are laughably inadequate, really vanishingly small and getting smaller. Some examples: In 2013, I netted $1,800 ($1.50 per word) for an assignment. Later the same outlet offered $900, even though my earlier piece was the most-read story of the year. For a while I got $75 apiece for lengthy reported articles for a food publication with 7 million monthly readers (so much for exposure).
Lately, the more successful publications tend to offer $250 to $500 for short to medium-length articles. So let’s say you want to gross $50K, which is at the low end of “middle income” in the United States. You’d have to sell 100 of those $500 stories per year — two per week, all year long — to scrape your target. Or four $250 stories per week. Or a mix.
Is it possible? Maybe. Does it sound like fun? Not to me. So these days I accept almost no freelance work and instead mostly publish on my own site. I lose the income but keep the traffic, along with my self-respect.
Talk about the state of wine writing today.
We need to consider wine writing within the broader field of wine communications. As a category, wine communications is expanding, with new voices and fresh approaches coming onto the scene all the time. Video and podcasts are both proving particularly rich channels.
But wine writing, per se, is guttering. Wine publications, with a few exceptions, have limited ability to assign chewy stories. Budgets are small and the diminishing ranks of editors lack capacity to partner with writers developmentally. Editors want novelty, and digital publications especially focus on frequent, short trend pieces to snatch attention. The bulk of the ink spilled on wine is not actually longform writing, but instead notes and scores that do nothing to advance understanding. It is a transactional form, and, as Andrew Jefford has noted, favors excellence over interestingness. Tasting notes are impoverished for communicating about the ephemera of wine, yet they’re the bulk of what we all see.
Despite the dismal publishing context, there is still good writing being done, often as a charitable act (c.f. paydays). The best works push past topic toward story, then move toward insight, the things the writer newly holds true. Such gestures make a story engaging to anyone, regardless of their interest in or understanding of wine. They make the writing timeless. That kind of writing is a lot of work. It requires not only subject matter expertise but also time to do primary and secondary research. It means visiting a region, talking with the principals, talking with cellar workers, rummaging through archives, chasing the genetics, questioning the clichés, getting the facts, then thinking about it long enough to develop a true idea. There are few writers with the bandwidth for that degree of commitment, but they are the ones I follow — and treasure.
What advice do you give to aspiring wine writers?
Read widely, mostly not about wine. Read good writing, especially good nonfiction. Question received wisdom. Learn enough about wine to develop your own opinions. Find a mentor. Ask for help. Taste.
What recommendations would you give wineries for interacting with journalists?
Know the writers, read their work, know their beat. I have good working relationships with publicists who know my values and research interests (regenerative farming, organics at a minimum, low intervention winemaking, old vines, autochthonous grapes, modernity within tradition, family skin in the game).
Writers on assignment have specific information needs and are often on deadline, so quick response and a usable Trade & Media area can determine whether a winery gets coverage. Press materials should be short on filler and long on facts and figures (viticulture, winemaking, team, ethos, case production, availability). Journalists also need access to principals for insight. No editor wants a quote from a press release.
Cold pitches are sometimes welcome, but they’re frequently overdetermined, essentially articles unto themselves. Write a pitch that piques thirst rather than swamps appetite.
Which wine personalities would you most like to meet and taste with (living or dead)?
Pliny the Elder, to understand wine’s ancient context. The Burgundian Cistercians, who were good noticers and more or less invented terroir (I bet they were fun at parties). M.F.K. Fisher, for wine within gastronomy and food culture. Robert M. Parker Jr., for his profound influence and so-called photographic taste memory.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
My first real job was as engineering lab tech for a VC-funded project to build one of the first color office printers. Soon I was doing database design and coding, hand-rolling my first website (in 1993) and breaking out as an information architect, UX designer and B2B software product manager. I’ve helped build a lot of interesting tech with a lot of interesting colleagues.
How do you spend days off?
I work every day, but mix it up. Sometimes I’m drawing a series of illustrations, sometimes I’m doing research, sometimes I’m making a video, sometimes I’m cranking out the writing. I do commit at least an hour per day to exercise, preferably outdoors, and during peak gardening season I’m in the yard as much as my office.
What is your most memorable wine or wine tasting experience?
Tasting the 1855 Taylor’s Scion tawny port at the Yeatman in Vila Nova de Gaia, in 2013, with principal Adrian Bridge. Taylor’s had discovered two pipes of this port at an estate in Baixo Corgo, purchasing it in 2010 and bottling it in a special crystal decanter. The bottle I sampled had been opened since 2011, having been used for short tasting pours (at €100 ea.). Bridge had brought the decanter, with about half remaining, to the table on my last night after visiting their quintas. The wine was still vibrantly alive. Until it was gone.
Carl Giavanti
Carl Giavanti is a Winery Publicist with a DTC Marketing background. He’s celebrating his 14th year of winery consulting. Carl has been involved in business marketing and public relations for over 25 years; originally in technology, digital marketing and project management, and now as a winery media relations consultant. Clients are or have been in Napa Valley, Willamette Valley, Walla Walla, Columbia Valley, and the Columbia Gorge. (www.CarlGiavantiConsulting.com/Media)
