Circle Chair Meg Maker ponders on what it means to be a ‘wine writer’ today, in an increasingly challenging professional environment.
The Circle is a guild of professionals who’ve earned the moniker ‘wine writer.’ That writing may appear in the form of article, blog, or book, or may be in service of podcast, broadcast, social post, lecture, or curriculum. (And yes, we do have photographers; they tell their tales in pictures.) But for the vast majority of us, wine is our métier, and writing is our medium.
‘Wine writer’ is a respectable profession, one that even inspires admiration. It’s a title hard earned, because excellence in wine communication demands excellence in wine subject matter. Wine is a complex topic to master, easy to love, and hard to learn. On the other hand, many who are drawn to wine are philomaths, people who love learning. To be an expert of wine is to be a perpetual student of wine.
If we can agree that wine writing is a noble pursuit, we can also agree that it’s ridiculously underpaid. A tiny (and diminishing) number of Circle members make their full livelihood through writing. Instead, writing’s part of a mix that may include lectures, tastings, tours, consulting, and more. Many members hold full-time jobs in adjacent fields, while others do completely unrelated work in professions like law, engineering, marketing, and the like. Wine writing is a career, but it’s not a living.
This reality is shatteringly evident when we Circle committee members review new applications to join. If we required everyone to devote 100% of their energy toward wine communications, the Circle would be very small indeed.
So why do we do it? Or why do we keep doing it? This is a question I’ve asked myself repeatedly over the last 15 years as I watched my article paydays decrease exponentially. As I commiserated with colleagues about their own rate cuts, job cuts, canceled columns. As I witnessed the evaporation of staff jobs, the shuttering of publications, the retiree’s shoes left unfilled.
Why do we do it? Here’s one answer: Conversation.
Good writers have something to say. They stir together expertise and wisdom, they take facts and figures and transform them into opinions, ideas, and stories. They pour all of this into a piece of writing, and then the magic happens: Readers read it.
Maybe it’s completely mind altering. Maybe it’s merely entertaining. But sometimes a reader’s perspective shifts so much the reader writes back. Comment sections and newsletters and social media have vastly changed the dynamic for writers, because our ideas are no longer just absorbed into the void. They return to us, redoubled with new insights from readers — sometimes annoying, maybe provocative, hopefully gratifying, but in the best case, edifying.
That conversation prompts new learning. And while learning’s not a perfect substitute for cash, it is, after all, one of the things that drew us to wine in the first place.
What’s your answer to the question, “Why keep doing it?” Email me at [email protected] with your thoughts.