The Somm Journal
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Karen MacNeil’s Never-Ending Story

THE AUTHOR EMBARKS ON WRITING THE THIRD EDITION OF HER BESTSELLING BOOK THE WINE BIBLE

Below is the unabridged version of our in-depth interview with Wine Bible author Karen MacNeil.

When Karen MacNeil first sat down to write what’s now the bestselling wine book in the United States, she had no idea how successful it—and, in turn, she—would become. Today, having won a multitude of prestigious awards, MacNeil is by far one of the most influential people in the industry. The first edition of The Wine Bible took eight years to complete, and now the third, set for release in 2022, will take her and her team about three.

SOMM Journal Managing Editor Jessie Birschbach: Why does The Wine Bible need a third edition?

Karen MacNeil: In the 1950s, books about the world of wine had three chapters: “France, Germany, and Other.” California in those days had three sentences. By the 1980s, wine books were still largely focused on the Old World, but at least Spain and Italy were now included as major wine regions.

By 2000, when the first edition [of The Wine Bible] came out, places like California, Chile, and Argentina deserved whole chapters. Then, when the second edition came out in 2015, all of a sudden there were chapters on China and Japan. But the book that I’m working on right now that will come out in 2022 will have chapters on Croatia, Turkey, and places that, ten years ago, even people who were really knowledgeable about wine knew little about. So part of the answer is that the world of wine is getting bigger. But the other part of the answer is that the number of people who are studying wine and have a voracious appetite for it is also larger.

You made a specialty of having fascinating side boxes. Is your approach to collect these interesting side boxes and cultural tidbits over time?

Yes. We have an embarrassing number of file cabinets. I’m always collecting. Over time you develop an eye for the quirky but very revealing cultural aspects of a place that make the wines from that place come alive. A good example: When I was writing the second edition, my editor called and asked, “Where are you? What are you doing?” I said, “I’m in Mendoza taking a tango lesson.” She said, “Karen, this a wine book!” I replied, “I don’t think you can understand Malbec without understanding the tango!” It came out as a quip, but I realized that I truly believe that. The more you see insights into a place, the more fascinating and revealing a wine becomes.

Tasting and making notes.

I relied heavily on this book when studying for my somm certification, and I continue to recall its information to this day. Why do think that’s true for me and so many others?

When I started writing The Wine Bible in the 1990s, the MS and the MW programs were not even available in the United States. I didn’t imagine my audience would also include people who were studying. Today, I would guess that most people who are earning a certification have at least looked at it—and many people have dog-eared copies. I am also a wine teacher, so I organized material and research in a way that a teacher does. It wasn’t intended to make studying easy, but it kind of turned out that way.

Also it’s important to note that historically wine books were written by people who were experts on wine but were not necessarily very good writers. I work at least as hard at being a good writer as I do at knowing about wine. I believe that the better something is written, the easier it is to read and the easier it is to learn from.

How far into this third edition are you?

It’s due to the publisher in the summer of 2021, two and half years from now, so I’m only just beginning. I’m at that point that comes with tidal waves of fear, like, “Oh my god, this is so huge—how will I ever do it?” But when you’re embarking on a 7,000-page manuscript, you have to keep putting the fear to the side and remind yourself that you can do this and that you should just keep going.

What are the biggest challenges of writing a comprehensive volume on such a broad topic?

My office always does primary research—we don’t copy something out of another writer’s books. If you’re a good journalist in addition to being a writer, you have to work hard to get the story right—and not just the facts, but the emotion, too. For example, I was talking to David Adelsheim [winemaker for Adelsheim Vineyard in Oregon’s Chehalem Mountains] the other day and Tony Soter [winemaker for Soter Vineyards] about the extent to which Oregonians think about Burgundy as their model. There’s no question that 20 years ago that was the case. But both men explained in detail how Oregon today is a very different place emotionally. A good journalist spends time on nuances. I’m the kind of person who doubles down when something evades me. [laughs]

We had something we were trying to figure out the other day for [MacNeil’s newsletter] WineSpeed . . . and I said to one of my team, “OK, you’ve got to call the European Union.” And she laughed and said, “Call the E.U.?” I said, “Yes! They have a phone. Someone is there and they probably have the answer!” I started out in newspapers, and in newspapers you called every possible source. I think I bring that kind of intensity to The Wine Bible, and that’s perhaps why a lot of people consider it a reliable source of information.

What are you adding to the newest edition?

One of the things I’m excited about adding is a new section on what I sometimes call the Old Old World—for instance, Armenia, Israel, Iran, Turkey. I think we’re going to see more and more of those wines. And by understanding the story of ancient wine, we gain insights into modern wine culture. Also, the China chapter will get bigger. Do you know which country currently produces the most Cabernet Sauvignon in the world? China! So I’m excited about the Old Old World, but also the New New World!

Plus, there will be scores of new side boxes, and a comprehensive grape glossary with all the up-to-the-minute information of grape genetics. We’re also expanding our glossary of wine terms. A glossary of words in English is fine, but ours will cover all of the common wine terms in Portuguese, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, German, and French. That glossary alone could be a book.

What lessons did you learn when you were writing your first edition that could serve as advice for other writers?

I suppose I’ve learned to trust my own instincts and not be afraid to be different. With the first Wine Bible, I didn’t think it would sell very well because it was not like the great British books. I greatly admire those books, but The Wine Bible is very different from the kinds of books written by Jancis (Robinson), Hugh (Johnson) or Tom (Stevenson) for example. The Wine Bible has a whole different tone and is rather more personal. It was risky to write the book that way. Luckily, it worked. And that has given me the courage to be much stronger in my opinions and how I want to say things.

Was there a day or a moment when you realized the book’s great success?

I suppose it happened more slowly. I’d be in a restaurant somewhere or asking about a wine, and people would say, “I know who you are!” And because writing is also very solitary, I was (and still am) surprised by that.

I guess, too, it’s that moment when you see the notice that a publisher sends saying, “Congratulations, we’re now going into a second printing.” I also remember when, with the first Wine Bible, I got the notice saying, “Congratulations, we are starting our 20th printing.” And I thought, “My god, that’s astounding. I had no idea.” Most wine books sell an average of 8,000–10,000 copies—The Wine Bible has sold about a million now. But once it hit even 8,000, I was ecstatic.

In a funny way, I also feel a kind of responsibility now that I didn’t feel when I was writing the first one. If I get a fact wrong, man, I hear about it! Winemakers, scientists, geologists—they call me. It’s actually been a great help. I met David Howell, who is a U.S. Geological Survey geologist, because he responded to something I’d written saying, “Well, you mostly have it right, but you haven’t told the whole story.” So now, whenever I write something about geology, I pass it by him first. I don’t think a lot of wine writing allows for the time it takes to first pass it by scientists and chemists and geologists to make sure that it really is right. A lot of people think publishers factcheck books, but they don’t. As a writer, you have to rely on your own sense of professionalism. Your reputation is based on it.

How nerve-wracking, though. Wine law, for instance, is changing constantly.

Yes, and explaining that sort of stuff well is hard, because if you read the law itself, it’s written in a very convoluted way. That’s especially true in almost all European countries; their legal statutes can be next to impossible to decipher. But that’s where being a teacher comes in handy. You try to get good at translating complex information so it makes sense.

In many recent texts, you’ll now see mention of climate change. Are you exploring that in this edition of The Wine Bible?

Yes. The second edition didn’t deal with climate change, but I will absolutely address it in the third edition, because some of the most sacrosanct traditional regions, like Champagne, are changing a lot because of climate change.

MacNeil teaching a class.

What will you continue to do in this third edition that you did in the others?

One of the things I did early on that I’m going to continue to do is to write as if I were telling the story aloud. With the first Wine Bible, I imagined telling a person—an imaginary smart 35-year-old woman— the story of wine, chapter by chapter. I still imagine that person, and when I sit down to write, I talk to her, which helps my wine writing be conversational as opposed to Oxford English. I like having an almost Hemingway-like approach to sentence structure when I write about wine.

From the publication of the first edition to now, what’s the biggest change you’ve seen happen in the wine world?

The biggest change has been a reverence for creativity. Creativity was not quite as appreciated in wine in, let’s say, the 1960s. There were the great classics and that was that. People assumed that all the great terroirs were already known. Innovation was not necessarily considered a good thing. The word “typicity” was written into virtually all European wine law in the 1960s. Your wines, in order to be approved, had to be typical. To some extent, the gift that both California and Australia gave the wine world was a great appreciation for and respect for being innovative and creative.

Looking toward the future, what do you foresee happening in the industry?

I think one of the interesting questions of our time will be, “Will the role of critics diminish?” It seems to me it has already has, and if that’s the case, to whom will people turn for wine information? Not necessarily for wine recommendations, because already a lot of people get recommendations from their friends or business associates. But your friends are usually not the people who can explain how some aspect of winemaking or viticulture works.

I’m not a critic, but I’m hoping that The Wine Bible will continue to be an authoritative source for people learning about wine. If people came to my office and saw how hard we work at researching and writing, there’s no question in my mind that they’d realize there aren’t many other books out there [that involve] the same labor and time getting wine stories straight, and telling those wine stories in a compelling, fascinating, and moving way.