Virtual SIPS
‘THE WINE BIBLE’S’ KAREN MACNEIL TALKS VIRTUAL TASTINGS, WINE GLASSES AND WINESPEED
Ifyou’re a wine lover, you know Karen Macneil. She wrote “The Wine Bible” ( Workman Publishing, $25), which has sold more than a million copies. The Napa Valley-based writer holds a James Beard award, an Emmy and every other wine-related award given out in the U.S., and her weekly Winespeed is the most popular oenophile newsletter in the country.
When the pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt in March, she was one of the first people to go virtual with # Tastewithkaren. The free Zoom sessions typically showcase a specific winery, with wines available to purchase if you want to taste along — because who wants to watch other people have all the fun? On Oct. 30, for example, Macneil was joined by Suzanne Groth and winemaker Cameron Parry from Groth Vineyards.
Thousands of people tune in each week from their homes in California and across the country. Now companies, which might have thrown holiday parties in normal times, are getting on board, booking private virtual wine parties for staff or clients. It’s wine education and lighthearted fun all in one.
Naturally, we had questions.
Q
What made you think of trying virtual tastings last spring?
A
Frankly, it came a little bit out of fear. When COVID lockdowns were beginning, my business, which I’ve had for 40 years, every event, every project, everything was canceled. I thought, oh my God, how am I going to replace these events? I’d started out in New York years ago doing radio and television, so I dusted off those skills, and we started doing # TastewithKaren straight to Instagram or Zoom, some in partnership with wineries.
Q
Do you think virtual tastings are here to stay, even post-pandemic?
A
It’s been amazing — this is a form of communication now that will become standard in the wine industry. It’s really expensive for small wineries to market themselves (crosscountry), and we have thousands of people who watch. For the winery, it’s terrific — they reach a much bigger audience. From a wine education standpoint, it’s fantastic. It’s become a great way to take a wine class without having to pay anything. You get to meet vintners, taste wine, see all these people in action.
Q
What other changes do you see coming?
A
The one thing I am fairly sure will happen is that restaurants will never again be able to charge the huge markups they used to charge for wine — because a lot of people are drinking wine at home. Even when they spring for that $80 bottle of wine, they know it is an $80 wine, not a $320 bottle of wine. When our world comes back, will restaurants be able to brazenly charge $320 for that bottle? I think consumers will be less inclined to accept those high markups.
Q
The third edition of “The Wine Bible” is due out in 2022. Will that be a revision, an update?
A
It’s more like you have a house. You know the house. But then piece by piece, you take the entire house apart. You take the roof off, the basement out, and then you think about it and put it back together with new rooms and new ideas and new material. We don’t just add stuff or update statistics. We take the whole book apart and redo every chapter, every box, every photo, all the glossary words. It takes years to do.
Q
What’s the last wine that surprised you?
A
I’ve tasted 3,000 wines a year for 40 years, so I think I know most grape varieties. But a couple of weeks ago, we had a susumaniello in the office. The wine was absolutely delicious. A southern Italian variety from the heel of the Italian boot in Puglia. Inexpensive. It tasted a bit like a zinfandel, but fresher. It was terrific. I couldn’t believe it: Here was a wine that I had never heard of and I wished I’d heard before. We wrote about it in Winespeed’s “Wines to Know.”
Q
Tell us about your new Flavor First wine glass project with Oneida.
A
When you ask someone, “What kind of wine do you like?” they answer very simply: I like powerful reds. I like crisp wines. (But) most wine glasses are named either after a wine region — the Burgundy glass — or a varietal, the sangiovese glass. It implies that in order to make a good choice about a wine glass, you have to know where Burgundy is.
( These) are the first wine glasses to be based entirely on flavor. There’s a glass for crisp and fresh wines, a glass for creamy and silky and one for bold and powerful. With just these three glasses, you can drink everything from Champagne to barolo. The leading factor is where the widest part of the glass is. In the “crisp and fresh” glass, the widest part is quite close to your nose. And “bold and powerful” is widest in the bottom quadrant, which means bold and powerful wines get three times more oxygen than in the crisp and fresh glass. What makes bold and powerful wines bold and powerful is largely tannin, and tannin is highly susceptible — in a good way — to softening with oxygen.