Interview with Karen MacNeil
Rachel Dickinson chats with Karen MacNeil, author of the award-winning book, The Wine Bible and Editor-in-Chief of WineSpeed.
They uncork a captivating conversation in Napa Valley, discussing their passions, memorable wine experiences, and dive into WineSpeed — Karen’s weekly digital newsletter providing fast and fascinating wine intelligence.
Rachel also speaks about her latest venture, Cellar Mouse, a website dedicated to wine country travel.
Below is a transcript of their interview.
Rachel Dickinson:
I am here with renowned author and founder of Wine Speed, Karen McNeil. Thank you so much for having me today here at your office.
Karen MacNeil:
I'm so glad you're here. It's great!
Rachel Dickinson:
Thank you, it's such a treat!
Karen MacNeil:
Yes.
Rachel:
Well, I'm really interested in learning more about WineSpeed and how you came up with the concept of it.
Karen:
It's a good question, thank you, Rachel. You know, a lot of people know me for The Wine Bible, and The Wine Bible is..it's big, it's heavy, it's a book and a number of years ago, I realized that this big change had begun to happen in wine communications. Not only were more people learning about wine from videos like what we're doing right now, but, you know, blogs had really taken off and people were consuming wine information in smaller, faster bits in a sense.
What was a little disappointing, though, is that I found that a lot of blogs were. Yes, they were fast. Yes, you could read them fast. Sometimes they were fun, but they were also sometimes wrong. These blogs were written seemingly very fast without fact checking and I don't know, as a researcher myself, I was disappointed in that.
And I thought, you know, I'm going to jump into that, into the pool too so I'm going to create a digital newsletter, which is what WineSpeed is. So it is fast. It's fascinating. You know it, it’s super fun. We have thousands of subscribers. But I'm going to bring to that medium the kind of background research that went into The Wine Bible.
So we started WineSpeed, it's been super successful. We have an 80% open rate and there's nothing else quite like it in the wine business.
Rachel:
Yes, I agree. And I've been having a great time with the food and wine quizzes, I've learned a lot of new things. And I really love your edits as well on wine, such as Wines of the Year, so I'm curious, how can a wine fall into that category?
Karen:
Yeah, you know, one of the things that we decided to do right when we started WineSpeed, I don't know about you, but I would often have just stacks and stacks of, you know, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate newsletter or The Wine Spectator, and you know the title would be something like “250 Sonoma Chardonnays”, and I would think that's why these newsletters don't get read, because, you know, who can go through 250 Sonoma Chardonnays or, or whatever the subject might be. So we started with the idea that all anybody needs to know is one wine. So the first item in WineSpeed is always we call it “The Wine To Know”. WineSpeed comes out on Friday. Lots of people buy the “Wine To Know” for the weekend to have that weekend. And I think that's in keeping with how people learn about wine these days, they often get turned on to a wine from a friend or from a family member, and that family member doesn't say, “here are 220 Sonoma Chardonnays, you need to try”. That family member says, “I tasted this great wine, you should try it”. So WineSpeed is in a sense, it's like what we're doing now. It's two friends who love wine, just talking with each other. And I think that's why it's become so successful.
Rachel:
Yes, and I'm curious to know, because there's a lot of wine industry intel in WineSpeed so how do you keep up with what's current across the globe in the world of wine?
Karen MacNeil:
Yeah. You know, when I began, wine was a smaller world. In fact, there were whole books with titles, “Wines of the World”, and they would have one giant chapter on France, one giant chapter on Germany, a little bit on Italy and Spain and nothing else. Right. But today, to really know about wine globally, you have to know as much about what's going on in New Zealand and Hungary and China and Japan and Chile and Argentina. It's just a bigger world. So there aren't many generalists like me left. Almost everyone is very tunneled into a specificity. So, you know, many writers there, their pinot noir specialists or their Napa Cabernet specialists, but I actually like, I mean, yeah, it does mean spending long hours at the office, but I like having a kind of global understanding of wine.
So, yeah, some woman has to do it.
Rachel:
Well, you're amazing at it. :)
Karen MacNeil:
Thank you.
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Rachel:
And I'm curious, what's one of the most memorable wine experiences that you've ever had?
Karen:
You know, sometimes the most memorable wine experiences are the simplest. You know, they're beautiful because of the company or with and I don't know, the feeling that you have, the mood that you're in. All of those things can make the utterly most simple wine seem extraordinary. So, you know, like a lot of people in the industry like you too, you know, we get to taste a lot of exciting and expensive wines. But often, for me, just a simple wine in the right circumstance can be extraordinary.
I will admit that I have one guilty pleasure.
Rachel:
Ooh!
Karen MacNeil:
Yes, which is I drink a glass of champagne every night. Every single night. I know for 20 years. And I feel like, okay, you know, I, I don't spend a huge amount of money on cars or clothes, but Champagne, I don't know.
You know, you have one of those Champagne stoppers and a bottle of $40 Champagne that's essentially $10 a glass. And I think I could do that.
Rachel:
Yes, I think Champagne is always a good idea so cheers to that!
Karen:
Yes, cheers to that is right. Yeah.
Tell me how you got started, because I know you've got a new website and it's travel focused in wine country, right?
Rachel:
Yes, so I have had my website rachelsstylishlife.com since I was in high school. Originally, the focus of it was more fashion and beauty. After high school I moved to New York City and I went to college there. And while I was in college I would go to New York Fashion Week and interview designers and makeup artists there.
I also worked at LVMH in marketing. So that's really where I got my first taste of luxury. After college, I moved back to California, so since I've been here, I've changed the angle of my website to be food, wine and travel. So rachelsstylishlife.com showcases the best places to eat, play and stay around the globe. With my new website Cellar Mouse it's really focused on wine country travel in particular. It's been a fun project and I just launched it, but there's lots more to come!
Karen:
Yeah, you know, I think wine country, if you're going to travel, wine country offers something more than just travel. It's a way of first of all, wine regions are usually a good food regions. Yes, but there's also wine people have a kind of sensibility. There's a cultural backdrop to wine regions that makes visiting them very fascinating. And also because I think wine people are inherently generous. And so when you visit wine country, you know, you often find yourself being invited in and having a very special experience that I think is different than just, I don't know, museum tours in Europe or whatever. And of course, who doesn't want to drink great wine and eat great food? That's always a plus.
Rachel:
Yes, for sure. I just love the culture around wine and just, you know, you can have a bottle of wine with a random group of people and make friends immediately and share stories. I'm attracted to that and I just love it.
Karen:
So yeah, no, it is true. And, you know, we tried to bring that sensibility to everything we write. I always think that if an idea is fascinating to me about wine, I'm pretty sure it's going to be fascinating to a lot of people. And so in WineSpeed we were always looking for that little nugget or those nuggets of information that would cause someone to say, “You won't believe what I just learned today? Did you know that?” And it could be silly, right? There are 25 sheep to every winemaker in New Zealand. I don't know, but that's something that I get really delighted when I hear someone repeat some little thing like that that I know they read in WineSpeed. Yeah. And the quizzes are fun. The quizzes are a good way to learn.
We get information, we get information, we get phone calls here all the time of people saying, I got the quiz right! People smile when they get the quiz right. So we have a great time writing it. Yes. You know, it's a good example of how something fun like a quiz, the answer to those quizzes is a kind of insight into something that you wouldn't necessarily know, but that is inherently fascinating.
And, you know, we are very good at research and we work hard at being sure we're right about what we write about. And it's funny to me because if I ever get anything wrong, let me tell you, I hear it from scientists from UC Davis professors. So we're always really careful about what we put in WineSpeed because we know that there are a lot of experts out there in a given field that will let us know if we ever get it wrong.
We don't usually get it wrong, but it's because all these scientists keep us on our toes. And, you know, a fun part of it is a section called Ask Karen where you can write in any kind of question, large or small, complex or simple, and so we have a lot of interaction with our subscribers and that's really fun. We've gotten all kinds of fascinating questions from our readers.
Rachel:
Creating a sense of community is great.
Karen:
Yeah, it is. It’s just as you were saying before, it's what wine is, is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a way that we connect with other people. That's why, for the most part, it's not served in single serving containers. Yeah, sorry canned wine industry, but yeah, it's supposed to be shared.
Rachel:
Yes. So if you could share a bottle of wine with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?
Karen:
You know, I think it would be. And not to be too political, but I think it would be Hillary Clinton, who is living of course. It's because I think that people who have failed at something are very interesting. Running for president, how hard that must have been and then how hard that failure to become president must have been. I mean, this woman must be just so strong and so resilient to have been able to do that. And I guess I think that strong, resilient women are fascinating.
Rachel:
Yes.
Karen:
So she would be right up there on my list. She actually does have the Wine Bible. And I know that because a friend who worked on her campaign asked me to inscribe a Wine Bible. And at first I thought, no, you're kidding me. And this person said, no, no, this is in fact for Hillary Clinton. So I don't know if she's ever read it, but that's a different story.
Rachel:
Wow, that's amazing.
Karen:
Who would you want to have a glass of wine with?
Rachel:
Yes, I would say Julia Child and Robert Mondavi, because they really brought food and wine to Napa Valley and made such a beautiful culture around it.
Karen:
Yeah, well, I've had wine with both of them.
Rachel:
Ooh, lucky you!
Karen:
Yes, and Julia Child is of course hysterical to interview. I interviewed her when I was a young woman and you know, both her voice and her sort of “joie de vivre” are fabulous and I will never forget Bob Mondavi saying to me the very first time I interviewed him. I drove up in a rental car, and this was probably in the 1970s. And in those days you really could just drive into Mondavi and there would be Bob, I don't know, shoveling out a tank or something, because he started the Mondavi Winery in his late fifties. People don't realize that he was you know, he had started that winery anyway very late. And we spent the day together and at the end of the day, this was when Mondavi, which is Robert Mondavi Vineyards, which today is better known for its Cabernet. But in those days he made a really wonderful pinot noir as well. And I remember him saying to me, “Now, young lady”, I said, “Yes, of course, Mr. Mondavi”. He said, “pinot noir is not supposed to knock your socks off, It's supposed to slip them off slowly”.
Rachel:
Ooh!
Karen:
Like, okay, that's a very good description of Pinot Noir. Yes, he was a champion of wine, a champion of lifestyle as you know, a champion of the good life, and a champion for Napa Valley. Great, man.
Rachel:
Yes, well cheers to him!
Karen:
Yes, exactly.
Rachel:
Karen, thank you so much for your time today, I really appreciate it. We previously met at the Three Sticks Women in Wine event and I've really enjoyed reading The Wine Bible as well. And I'm lucky enough to have a copy signed by you, so thank you so much for everything that you've done to contribute to the wine industry and continue to educate people on the latest and greatest.
Karen:
My pleasure. I'm always really happy for young women such as yourself who are really doing dynamic things in the industry and really helping the culture of wine in America move forward. So cheers to you, too.
Rachel:
Thank you, Karen.