More on that Symposium
I finally wrote Toni and asked if I could describe the wine writing symposium in more detail here on OWF. I wanted to make sure there wasn't an "everything off the record" assumption that I didn't catch. She said go for it, so here's a bit about the event.
I'm not sure the fifty or so wine writers seated under the peaked roof of Meadowood's Vintner's Room knew what to expect of this inaugural Wine Writers' Symposium. Some had been to the food writing equivalent that Toni runs at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, but more than one attendee commented that this new event might have a different dynamic: The wine writing world is much smaller than the food writing world, and wine writers are arguably more isolated from each other than food writers.
What do wine writers talk about with each other? Do you imagine we compare the great wines we've encountered in our lives, try to outguess each other in blind tastings, speak in flowery prose about the fine structure of a wine? No. In fact, a number of us noticed that we speak differently amongst ourselves than we do to our readers. We barely talk about wine as a beverage. For all of us, wine is just a way of life, and it's no big deal. We do talk about whether scores matter, and the difficulty of making it as a writer, and the ethics of everything from samples to press junkets.
We also talk about the future of wine writing. The first (and last) panel grappled with this topic explicitly, but it permeated every conversation. Panelist Jerry Shriver of USA Today wondered aloud what would happen if the U.S. Supreme Court voted to allow all interstate direct shipping of wine (an unlikely extreme scenario, in most people's mind) or if China, one-sixth of the world's population, developed a strong interest in wine. These would have huge impacts on our business. Michael Franz from The Washington Post predicted our readers will specialize more over time as wine becomes better integrated into society, and Frank Prial from the New York Times asserted that we'll need to understand and explain economics and politics as the industry changes.
Of course, wine writing won't have much of a future if there aren't any wine drinkers. Wine writers constantly share ideas on how to get more people drinking wine. I'd prefer to focus my food and wine writing on helping people see through propaganda and misinformation, but it's just good business sense to nurture more wine drinkers. Think of how food writing proliferated as Americans learned to appreciate fine ingredients and the pleasure of a good meal. You can't shake a stick in the Bay Area without hitting a food writer, but in one two-day conference I've probably met one-fourth to one-third of the dedicated editorial wine writing community. There's room for growth, to say the least.
Clay Gregory and Judd Wallenbrock gave a presentation on the last day that discussed the business of wine overall, but it offered some useful information on how to create more wine drinkers. This was one highlight of the conference for me. There are a group of "marginal" drinkers who drink wine less than once a week, and more than once a month. Gregory and Wallenbrock argued persuasively that this is the group to focus on if we want more people to drink wine. The group is slightly larger than the core drinkers who consume wine more than once a week. How can we get more marginals to be core drinkers? One statistic jumped out at me: In a survey, only 34% of the core group thought wine made a meal more formal, but 48% of the marginal group thought so. It's our job as wine writers and wine educators to help consumers realize that for the most part wine is simply a healthy (in moderation) beverage that enhances a meal. Wine snobbery and our country's Puritan streak have left us feeling awkward and stiff around wine. That needs to change.
There was plenty more at the conference. Sam Gugino talked about writers' rights, another panel talked about food and wine writing, and Jack Hart gave a fantastic talk on how to improve our general writing skills. This was another highlight for me. Lots of stuff I "knew" in a general way, but that doesn't mean I apply the techniques reliably. I'm largely a self-taught writer (though Ed as an editor makes anyone a better writer) and I found it useful to get concrete examples and explanations of why some sentence structures work and others don't. I've resolved to read more poetry to get a better sense of rhythmn. Time to dig out my Dana Gioia book.
Oh, and finally, we ate and drank well. Most of our meals were at Meadowood itself, but I'll never forget walking into the darkened Cask Room at the CIA to see a well-lit, single long table waiting to seat 70 of us. The Napa Valley Vintners' Association donated all the wines, and I even found some California wines I liked. The Frog's Leap 1998 Rutherford I drank at the CIA dinner was elegant in a way one rarely sees in this state's wines. I also enjoyed the 2003 Bourassa Vineyards Viognier we drank at the "Extraordinary Wine Tasting" dinner on the last night of the symposium. I imagine the wineries were happy to donate wines to fifty wine writers from around the country.
So that's the gist. Toni reminds me that the event is open to professional editorial wine writers. If you only write "advertorials" or PR, you probably won't find the conference useful. And what constitutes "professional" in a universe of bloggers? I told Toni I don't envy her the task of figuring that out.
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