{"id":16629,"date":"2017-01-07T12:06:24","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T12:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=16629"},"modified":"2017-01-07T12:06:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T12:06:24","slug":"ego-is-the-death-to-good-wine-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/ego-is-the-death-to-good-wine-writing","title":{"rendered":"Ego is the death to good wine writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

Good writing is all about narrative, we are told. When you go to a wine region, find the stories, and tell them. It\u2019s good advice.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a danger facing wine writers looking too intently for a story.<\/p>\n

If they are not careful, their pieces become more about them than they do the region they are visiting. Ego is the ravine that many writers risk plunging into. Some have already fallen in and there\u2019s not much chance of saving them. They aren\u2019t the story, yet so often they place themselves at the centre of it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to find a narrative thread to hang a piece on, but only if it\u2019s actually true. I love it when I find one.<\/p>\n

Some acclaimed writers centre their pieces on constructs of their own making: they create a big theme (\u2018the heart of XXXX\u2019; \u2018the future of XXXX\u2019, \u2018the soul of XXXX,\u2019 or some similar idea), and then base their piece around this construct which doesn\u2019t actually exist. It often sounds plausible, but that\u2019s because no one questions the legitimacy of the construct.<\/p>\n

Often, the big story in the wine region seems to be that they<\/strong> have visited.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, there\u2019s no narrative. People are making wine. Some people have successful businesses, some have less successful ones. Some make cheaper wines; some make more expensive wines. Most people are trying to make better wines, and generally quality is a bit better than it used to be<\/a>. Sometimes, that\u2019s all. If this is the case, then just tell me a bit about who\u2019s doing the best work, making the most interesting wines. Tell me a bit about the place and the soils. That\u2019s all I want to know. Give me some colour, and write bravely and clearly, but I don\u2019t want to read about your imaginary construct. You are not the story.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good writing is all about narrative, we are told. When you go to a wine region, find the stories, and tell them. It\u2019s good advice. But there\u2019s a danger facing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16630,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16629\/revisions\/16630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}