Circle Chair Meg Maker reflects on the changing world of wine writing in her inaugural column for The Circular.
Wine and spirits writers are a creative lot. We’re cultural commentators, observers who tap into the shape-shifting zeitgeist, so we can frame the product in ways that connect. We imagine new words to meet the moment, modifying or inventing language to say what we mean.
All languages evolve, their vocabularies and vernaculars enjoying cycles of emergence, expansion, standardization, modernization, and reinvention. Such a cycle has radically transformed wine discourse over the last half-century.
The tasting note of today is a relatively recent phenomenon. It rose to primacy only a few decades ago, propelled by changes in science, fashion, pop culture, and the industry itself. Whereas earlier writing focused on a wine’s geography or typicity, the new style emphasized its hedonic properties. The writing went from ‘what’s this wine about’ to ‘what’s this wine about to me.’ And it bloomed with lavish metaphorical descriptors, heavily olfactory. That style reached its High Mannerism in the late 90s and has now arrived, all filigree and gilt, at its Baroque.
It’s losing its luster. As new communities discover wine, they also discover the limitations of writing that relies so heavily on the language of flavor. At issue is not just ‘the gooseberry problem,’ the use of flavors unfamiliar to swaths of global wine lovers. It’s the entire reference frame, the gap between writer’s and reader’s worldviews. ‘What it’s about to me’ depends not only on who’s talking but also on who’s listening.
Unlike 50 years ago, today our work is freed from the echo chamber of closed-circulation monthlies. It flies around the world to be instantly shared and quoted. Such sweeping access is another reminder that we need new ways to reach readers and new ways to embrace their feedback.
Communicators are meeting the moment with fresh perspectives and approaches. Among them are many fellow Circle members. Henna Bakshi, Aleesha Hansel, and Sumi Sarma, for example, have shared ideas to diversify and expand our perspectives. Jancis Robinson, Malu Lambert, Reva Singh, Erica Duecy, Simon Woolf, Peter Richards, Alder Yarrow, Emily Saladino, and I have interrogated how language supports (or undermines) the project. I may have missed a few of us, so diverse are these efforts.
The upshot? Wine commentary is ripe for reinvention. That renewal will be driven by the imaginative and playful, the curious, the creative, and, let’s be honest, the deadline-driven. In other words, by us all.
Have you shifted your own tactics and strategies, reinventing the ways you write about wine and spirits? Email me at [email protected] I’d love to hear from you.