Six years ago, Wine Industry Advisor debuted Turning the Tables, a monthly series of interviews that shined a spotlight on the journalists and storytellers within the wine world. Developed and spearheaded by industry publicist Carl Giavanti, TtT has become a readers’ favorite, introducing the people behind the headlines.
“When I started my career as a winery publicist more than 15 years ago, I was warned about ‘The Ask’ — or making your move too soon when pitching journalists,” says Giavanti. “The concept of Turning the Tables: Interviewing the Interviewers is based on ‘the equity theory,’ that people are motivated by fairness. It’s a quaint concept these days, but the idea is that if I do something nice for you, you’ll reciprocate. It’s been a great way to initiate relationships and get to know more about the people behind the pen.
“I pitched this series to Wine Industry Network in 2018, and rolled out the first interview [Paul Gregutt, when he was the Pacific NW reviewer for Enthusiast] in November 2018.”
Over the years, TtT has featured well-known critics and writers such as Karen MacNeil (The Wine Bible, Come Over October), Eric Asimov (New York Times), Clive Pursehouse (Decanter) and Virginie Boone (Wine Enthusiast). He’s also zeroed in on frequent Wine Industry Advisor contributors such as Melanie Young, Kathleen Willcox, former editor Stacy Briscoe (now with Wine Enthusiast) and even (ahem) myself.
Please enjoy as we embark on another round of this popular installment series.
— Alexandra Russell, WIA managing editor
Turning The Tables on Felicity Carter
By Carl Giavanti
Based in Europe, Felicity Carter is the founder of the Drinks Insider podcast, a research and content consultancy, as well as editorial director of Areni Global, the fine wine think tank headquartered in London. Previously, she was founding executive editor of The Drop at Pix, editorial consultant for Liv-ex, and editor-in-chief of Meininger’s Wine Business International, which she built into the world’s premier business publication, with subscribers in 38 countries. Her work has appeared in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers in Australia, and in The Guardian US, among many others. She has interviewed global wine leaders and given keynote presentations around the world on the challenges and opportunities facing the wine business, as well as on wine tourism.
How did you come to wine and to wine writing?
It was because I got a job as a copywriter at Australasia’s biggest direct marketing wine company. I was very involved in the arts at the time, and somebody at rehearsals had told me about this company. It was known as a place where they would give you time off if you landed a gig or went on tour and it was packed with film and theater actors, quiz show hosts, opera singers and other shady types. The company did in-house wine training, so I learned about wine for the first time. Before then, I not only knew nothing about wine, I didn’t really drink alcohol. They gave me a case of wine once every month as part of my salary and, for the first few months, I just gave it all away to friends.
That changed!
After September 11, I decided to go back to university and study journalism. Not knowing anything about how competitive wine writing was, I pitched a story and sold it to The Age, a major metropolitan newspaper. The editor liked my work and wanted more stories, so I had to learn more about wine at top speed. Things went from there.
What is the focus and intent of your Drinks Insider podcast?
It started out as a podcast about how to make money in beverages. I know from my time as editor-in-chief of Meininger’s International that the number one topic that gets everybody’s attention is money, so that’s what I decided to focus on. In August I created the Wine + Health podcast, which took off faster than I expected, so I’m spending more time tracking down interviewees for that project.
What are your primary story interests?
The business of wine. How markets function, which markets are in growth or decline, trends — that kind of thing. I am increasingly interested in alcohol and health and discovering what we know, what we don’t know, and what’s wishful thinking.
How and why did you get involved in editorial and research consulting?
Somebody asked if I could help them out with their content strategy, and then another person came along and, before I knew it, I needed business cards. My expertise is in building and retaining audiences and subscribers, and I have good instincts for what interests people and keeps them engaged. These days, I also get requests for export market reports and white papers, because everybody is either looking for actionable data, or the places where they can find new consumers. Occasionally, I am asked to write company histories or edit memoirs, which I love.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
I am a wretchedly bad cook. Admitting this to wine people is like confessing you’re a serial killer, so this is probably a career-ending admission. But while I love eating good food, I will do anything to avoid the stove. One night, I was alone and tried cooking something and threw some butter in — which I’d never done before — and was so surprised at the great results I went on Twitter and boasted about my discovery, thus revealing my ignorance about food. I got people tweeting back and telling me I was a disgrace to the wine world.
I showed the tweets to my partner, who is a fantastic cook, and he was really indignant. Not because people were sending me mean tweets, but because I hadn’t noticed all the times he’d made a special effort to cook with butter, because he could tell I liked it.
What haven’t you done that you’d like to do? What’s next for you?
A book! I’ve written some books, but they were a very long time ago and it’s well past time to do another one.
What is one thing you’d like your audience to learn from your writing and podcasts about wine?
I want them to discover ways to make loads of money and then use it to commission me to do exciting and lucrative projects.
What’s the best story or podcast you have written? Please provide a link.
I don’t know if it’s the best story, but the one I wrote for The Guardian about my life as an astrologer got the biggest reaction of anything I’ve ever done. I was standing at a wine awards ceremony in Hong Kong when it came out and my phone nearly melted from all the messages I was getting. The story had 400,000 clicks within the first few hours and kept growing from there. There were so many hundreds of comments coming in, they had to shut down the comments section.
The astrology community was livid about it and sent me non-stop hate mail for the next three days. One media astrologer even wrote a 1,000-word denunciation of me, based on biographical information she read on the internet — except that she’d found the life story of another person of the same name. Most of the messages came from people in robes telling me I was a fraud and threatening many lifetimes of bad karma, which I thought was very funny. I kept reading my hate mail out to people at ProWine Shanghai, until they begged me to stop.
“But this one’s from a wizard,” I would reply, and read it out anyway.
If you weren’t writing about wine for a living, what would you be doing?
I still hold out hope that a funeral trade magazine will offer me a job. One of my first ever features was a story about innovation in the funeral industry and, like most novice journalists, I over-researched it, crisscrossing Sydney to visit funeral homes. Funeral professionals have to develop gallows humor to stay sane in the face of what they do, making them the funniest people I have ever met in my life. I’d be happy to spend the rest of my career interviewing them.
Like the time I asked a funeral director if she got upset when she read about breakthroughs in medicine.
“You can’t let things like that bother you,” she said. “There will always be car accidents and morons. We’ll be OK.”
If anybody is looking for an editor for Crematoria Today, get in touch.
Can you describe your approach to wine writing and podcasting?
I lurch from procrastination to panic-driven productivity. I do, however, spend a lot of time researching the people I interview so I can ask them questions they haven’t been asked before.
Do you work on an editorial schedule and/or develop story ideas as they come up?
I have clients who have editorial schedules I need to adhere to. When it comes to my own projects, I do things as they strike me.
How often do you write assigned and paid articles (not your blog)? How often do you blog? Do you post your articles and pods on social media? Why is that important?
Sometimes I post things on LinkedIn. I know it’s necessary, but I strongly dislike the culture of self-promotion that we’re all forced to participate in these days. Though I do admire a good humblebrag.
Do you consider yourself an Influencer? What’s the difference today between a writer and an influencer in your opinion?
Anybody who writes can be influential, of course, but I generally think of an “influencer” as someone who posts branded content on social media and receives remuneration for doing so. That’s public relations or marketing, not journalism.
What are your recommendations to wineries when interacting with journalists?
Please don’t send endless emails asking when the story is coming out. And please label photographs! It’s frustrating to receive a WeTransfer with hundreds of unlabelled photos.
What advantages are there in working directly with winery publicists?
Most people working in the business are highly professional and get things done quickly.
Which wine reviewers/critics would you most like to be on a competition panel with?
One of the great things about competition panels is meeting unexpected people for the first time. Some of the quietest people have the most incredible knowledge.
If you take days off, how do you spend them?
I’ve decided to spend more time reading. Earlier this year, I realized I’d drifted away from books and that was probably why my concentration had become so fragmented and why my writing was stuck in a particular pattern. Immersive reading can fix both of those things, so right now I am spending as much free time as possible with a book.
What is your most memorable wine or wine tasting experience?
The first time I went to Paris, my partner and I did the most clichéd thing ever. We sat outside a bistro with a gingham tablecloth and ordered something like a croque monsieur. The sun was shining and the waiter was rude, just like in the movies. The waiter brought out some basic wine in a pottery jug and it was the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.
What’s your cure for a wine hangover?
Don’t get out of bed.
Do you have a favorite wine and food pairing?
At one stage, I used to go with my direct mail copywriting colleagues to this Chinese restaurant for lunch. As the months passed we realized that our favorite dish was the salt and pepper squid, which we’d have with whatever wine we’d grabbed on the way out. Usually, this was Barossa Shiraz. This was the Parker era, where Aussie red wines were wildly alcoholic fruit bombs, you understand. One day we told the staff to forget everything on the menu and just bring out the salt and pepper squid. We ate our way through about six plates. With 15% ABV red wine. Magic.
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Carl Giavanti is a Winery Publicist with a DTC Marketing background. He’s celebrating his 15th year of winery consulting. Carl has been in business marketing and public relations for over 25 years; his background is in tech, digital marketing and project management contributes to his role as a winery PR consultant and wine writer. Clients are or have been in Willamette Valley, Napa Valley, Walla Walla, and Columbia Valley (www.CarlGiavantiConsulting.com/Media)
