A wine writer needs a wine education
Words doth not issue without the seeds of learning.
This is also available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.
My good friend and well-respected drinks writer, Henry Jeffreys recently wrote an engaging post titled, “Do wine writers need qualifications?”
It rightly gained a great deal of attention given that both the “writing” and “education” aspects of wine are hotly-discussed amongst winedrinkers.
I’m always quick to read anything Henry writes, but right from the start, this piece caught my eye with the tagline:
After 15 years as a wine autodidact, I am wondering whether it would help to study for some professional qualifications.
What’s interesting is that he and I share a great deal in common as we’re the exact same age (“youthful” GenXers), hold degrees in English Literature, and have been writing professionally about drinks for nearly the same amount of time. Despite this, we each came at the profession in rather different manners.
Henry, being English (thus, European), arrived to writing about drinks and specifically wine via a more self-taught manner. Myself as an American, I actually followed some prescriptive courses and sat exams (some passed, some not) to arrive at my current state of wine knowledge.
This is important to note as the most well-known wine certifications—Wine & Spirits Education Trust, the Court of Master Sommeliers, and the Institute of Masters of Wine—are British institutions. It’s unsurprising given that Europe-wide there is a strong emphasis on earning an excessive amount of degrees and certifications in order to appear qualified to do things. In Spain, where I’m based, this even has a name, “diplomitis”.
In what is a sharp contrast to Europe and, despite having a wealth of universities, Americans usually learn through trial and error paired with the accumulation of collateral damage. There is no better example of this recently than, “Tariffs!” “Um, that’s a horrible idea.” “No way, let’s do it!” “Fine, what’s the worst that could happen.” […] “Oh.”
But to answer Henry’s initial question via my decade and a half in this zany landscape, while the “writing” part is the absolute most crucial element to wine writing, the qualifications aren’t the means to an end, usually.