An Interview with the Author of The Wine Bible: Karen MacNeil

“One of the Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry”

Introducing Karen MacNeil

Today I am happy to introduce you to Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible, the best-selling book on wine in the U.S.  Karen and her team also craft a digital newsletter on wine called Winespeed. Karen is the President of Karen MacNeil and Company, a firm based in Napa Valley, creating one-of-a-kind wine experiences and educational marketing programs for a wide range of corporate clients. Karen has had numerous television appearances including NBC’s Today Show, and as the host of an Emmy-Award-Winning PBS television series, Food Wine and Friends with Karen MacNeil.

 In 2018 Karen was named by IntoWine.com Magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the U.S. wine industry.” Karen and I have met many times in the past in Napa Valley, including meeting at the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). I began my wine studies in 2009 with Karen’s CIA program called “Wine Immersion.”

Let’s welcome Karen MacNeil to Wine Wanderings. See Transcription of Interview Below.

The Wine Bible

Karen MacNeil has graciously offered the Wine Bible for purchase with a personalized signature. Purchase: The Wine Bible Here.

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Karen MacNeil, author, The Wine Bible

Transcription: An Interview with Karen MacNeil, Author, The Wine Bible

Introduction to Interview

Tricia Conover, Wine Wanderings (TC):

This is Tricia Conover with Wine Wanderings. Today I'm happy to introduce to you Karen MacNeil, the author of The Wine Bible, the best selling book on wine in the U.S. She and her team also craft a digital newsletter called WineSpeed. Karen is the president of Karen MacNeil Company. It's a firm that's based in Napa Valley that creates one-of-a-kind wine experiences and educational marketing programs for a wide range of corporations. She has been on television and made many appearances including NBC’s Today Show and was the host of an Emmy-Award winning program on PBS called Food, Wine and Friends with Karen MacNeil. Karen has been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the Wine Industry.” Karen and I've met many times in the past Napa Valley at the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers, and also at the Culinary Institute of America where I started my wine studies in 2009. Karen, welcome to Wine Wanderings.

Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible and WineSpeed, (KM):

Hi, Tricia, nice to be with you.

Question 1 (TC): Let’s talk about Winespeed and how it has changed, and also how has your business changed in the past year with the Pandemic?

(KM): we started WineSpeed in 2016, as a digital newsletter that was super fast to read, hence the name, WineSpeed. So many people knew me from The Wine Bible, and The Wine Bible is fun to read. You can pick it up anywhere. But it's hefty, right? It's a book, and it's a 1000-page book. So I was hoping to create a newsletter that would come to your inbox every Friday, which is what it does, full of fast, fun tidbits about wine to read so that you could sort of keep up to date, keep your knowledge up to date. We put in there fun quizzes. And it's grown, and now we have about 30,000 subscribers. But it hasn't changed, we somehow managed to hit the nail on the head pretty much right the first time around. So the content is, it's very similar. It's just a testament to the world of wine that we never run out of things to talk about and ideas to share. Like everyone's business, my business has gone [mostly] virtual in the last year. We do an enormous number of live virtual wine tastings with winemakers and vintners around the world. People can get a schedule of those on WineSpeed. So it works out really well.

Question 2 ( (TC): You said in an article Jan 29, 2021 on WineSpeed that one should “Match the wine to the mood, not wine to food.” Can you give examples of what you mean by that?

(KM): I think we all know, whether one is a wine expert or not, everybody knows kind of what they're in the mood for. And we do that every night. When we figure out what do we have for dinner? Right? What should we cook? What should we go get at the store? What are we in the mood for? And I think wine is very much like food in that regard. You just come home after a long day of work. You're in the mood for a glass of Chardonnay, even if you're putting a steak on the grill. So, you know, without a doubt, there are food and wine matches that are just sublime. But I don't think on an everyday basis people need to be quite so tightly rigid about how they eat and drink. I mean, after all, people managed to eat and drink quite well for the last 8000 years since wine has been invented. Nobody gave them a list of wine and food rules. So I think they ate according to their own body's desire. And I don't want us to minimize that today.

(TC): It's a good point, no rules.

Question 3 ( (TC): Karen, what other consulting are you doing these days?

(KM): We do a lot of work for various companies and corporations, law firms, insurance companies, banks, who are using live virtual wine tastings as a way to stay in touch with their clients. You know, in the old days, not so long ago, a law firm would take its best clients out to dinner and socialize and talk a little business. Now all of that work has moved online. But instead of simply having a Zoom business meeting, it's really quite fun to do a wine tasting with your clients. So it's been that we have found it a wonderful way of helping businesses stay in touch with with their clients.

(TC): It really is. I did an article on that, this year actually, on  Stoller and Clos du Val, both [did Virtual Tastings with] top corporate clients. They were definitely doing virtual tastings for some large corporations like Google and Intel. It's a really good business to have and a fun thing way to entertain your clients, certainly.

Question 4 ( (TC): How did the latest edition of the Wine Bible fare vs. the first? Did you notice a change in readership or the type of readership? How is the new edition coming?

(KM): This [holding book] is the second edition. The first edition took 10 years to write. It's a big book. And it's a really well-researched book. The second edition took four years to write. I'm hoping to do this third one, which I'm in the middle of, in three years, which sounds like a very long time. But, of course, we're running a business at the same time that I'm doing all that writing. And how has it changed? Well, the wine world has gotten a lot bigger. There are places that need to be covered today, like China and Croatia, the Republic of Georgia, places that typically weren't in wine books historically. But also I think I have just gotten better as a teacher at explaining really pretty complex concepts in an entertaining and easy-to-understand kind of way. Not everybody is automatically a great writer, me included, and it takes as much time and effort to become a good writer as it does to become knowledgeable about wine or become a good taster. So, presumably with time one gets better. And I think I've gotten better at writing and explaining how wine works.

(TC): Definitely. It's the only wine book I've read cover-to-cover—I did that the month before I went to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley.] It gave me the boost that I needed. It was so readable. You're right. Congratulations on that.

Question 5 ( (TC): To what personal trait do you attribute your success as a wine author, consultant, and contributor?

(KM): I am pretty relentless. I don't take “no” for an answer. I think of myself as a pretty creative person. When The Wine Bible came out, it was different than any wine book that had ever been produced. And, you know, I suppose the fastest way to get me to do something is to tell me it's not possible to do something. Then I'm really determined. But I think that for anyone who has their own business in wine, and who is not independently wealthy, you have to be determined. You have to not take “no” for an answer. You have to be creative. So, I know those are three things, but they're kind of related in my mind.

Question 6 (TC): Karen, you have conducted many interviews with some of the most important people in the wine business (Jancis Robinson, among others.) Who were two of your favorites?

(KM): You know, I think one favorite, of course, was Steven Spurrier, who unfortunately passed away yesterday… truly one of the great men of wine. He was the first real British writer to be interested in the wine business in the United States. I met Stephen 40 years ago in Napa Valley, when no British writer considered California important enough to visit. So, certainly that interview with Steven, which I think was his last interview, was very important. Another one that comes to mind, not just so much because it was fun, but because it was so informative, was the interview I did with with Carol Meredith. The great Dr. Carol, who is the professor emeritus of UC Davis's  enology and viticulture program, was the co- inventor of DNA typing of grapevines. She told me during this interview, which went on quite some time, the whole story of how DNA typing was invented for grapevines, what they did, and how they discovered the parentage of Zinfandel. That was really, really fascinating. And I suppose if I can add one more [person], it would be the interview with Bill Harlan, because Bill is very quiet. He's not easy to to interview. Luckily, I've known him for many years, so I felt like I could get him to talk about things that he normally wouldn't. So that was really a fun one, too.

(TC): Well, those are great examples. I'm very sad about Steven’s passing. He actually handed me my diploma in London for [WSET] graduation.  I have a picture of him on my diploma wall. So we're all very sad about his passing.

Question 7 ( (TC): Wine Wanderings, my newsletter on Substack, is about wine, spirits, and travel to beautiful places where they exist. What has been your favorite wine region adventure?

(KM): I've been lucky to have so many. You know, one of the great things about wine, as you know, is that it is the way--one of the ways--that our culture reveals itself. So, traveling to wine regions is not only fun because of the wine, but also because of all of these slight intangibles where you learn about the culture, the mores of a place, the values of a place, and the traditions of a place. So, you can go Tango dancing in Argentina and be drinking Malbec or, you know, taking monorails up and down great vineyards, steep vineyards in the Mosel [River] believing that your life is about to end because those vineyards are so steep. Or [You can sit in a] Spanish bodega where Hemingway drank wine. I mean, it's an endless fascination of mine: how wine does reveal the culture of a place? So, is one better or more revelatory than another? I don't think so. I don't know. I go looking whenever I'm in a place to to really feel the mores of that place. My most recent trip before the pandemic was interestingly to the Himalayas in China.  I've never stood in a vineyard with yaks before, but it was yaks in the vineyard! I had Yak yogurt for breakfast, Yak tea for for breakfast as well. And then, [I had] Yak meat at night. It was like, all yaks, all the time.

(TC): Now that’s really an adventure. I'm not gonna forget that story anytime soon. Karen, thank you so much for joining me on Wine Wanderings, I look forward to interviewing you this time next year to see what we've done when we're opened up--post pandemic.

(TC): Karen, thank you for joining me on Wine Wanderings.

(KM): Thanks, Tricia. My pleasure.

End of Interview