Someone once told me that nothing in wine media gets page views like writing about wine writing. No one seems to be sure quite why this is the case. It might be because, in wine, everyone fancies themselves a writer. It might be because wine writers are an easy target. It might be, whisper it, because even when confined to a topic as limited and prosaic as wine, writing is an act that provokes much more interesting discussion than making beverages does.

Whatever the reason, the conversation seems to be relentlessly negative. Everyone, it seems, is unhappy with the state of wine writing, including wine writers themselves. So, in a Victorian spirit of perpetual self-improvement, I have spent a lot of time listening and keeping notes. As a result, I think I now have a solid understanding of what it takes to be a good wine writer, and I am ready to share this with you.

Wine writing as an activity exists because of the wine industry and the relationship between the two is, depending on your view, symbiotic or parasitic. As such, the good wine writer should first and foremost appreciate she only has a job because of it, and thus support the industry, or, in trade parlance, “our industry”. At the same time, it is very important that the good wine writer is a wine journalist. When I say journalist, I don’t mean the real-world journalist, of non-dom payrolls and revolving doors, but the journalist of popular imagination and Hollywood lore. Tirelessly pursuing the truth, fearlessly going against established interests, heroically exposing scandals. Just as long as the scandals refer to what the guy on the other side of the river is doing. And certainly not the scandal of what everyone is doing. Times are tough and the wine industry is just trying to make a living. So the good wine writer should remember his symbiotic/parasitic part in the chain and support our industry.

The good wine writer should, naturally, be a good writer. Actually, the good wine writer should be an outstanding writer. It is one thing to hold a reader’s attention when talking about things of fundamental importance, high complexity, and visceral interest, such as politics, the arts, a ball hitting a net, or you won’t believe how this actor looks now. It is quite another to do this while mostly discussing why this beverage is very slightly different to that other beverage if you are really paying attention. On the plus side, the wine writer gets to write about how much fun it is to take a drug without having to worry about a visit from the police, in most countries at least.

The good wine writer should also be a good communicator. This communicator should be able to address the 1% that drinks expensive wine and the 97% that drinks inexpensive wine, and ignore the 2% in between that actually cares about wine. What this last cohort drinks is…

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