For those of us making a living writing about wine, there’s a choice we have to make. Do we position ourselves as experts or generalists? Do we specialize in just a few areas, going deep, or do we try to maintain a global focus, covering all regions more generally?<\/p>\n
For anyone starting out, I’d say focus on the former, but don’t neglect the latter.
\nYou want to become the go-to writer on a few areas of expertise. That’s the way to get work. There are just too many wine writers and not enough work for all (even all the good ones), so you have to have a point of difference, as well as being an excellent taster and writer. <\/p>\n
There are real dangers with the generalist approach. If you try to cover the whole world of wine you’ll be spreading yourself too thin, and any serious attempt to cover every significant region will leave you a sleepless workaholic.
\nHaving said this, the best approach is to specialize on the platform of a strong general knowledge. You have to put the work in to gain the sort of context where you can do ‘specialist’ well. If you want to be a really useful specialist, you need to benchmark with the classics; to have an understanding of what the aesthetic system of fine wine considers to be ‘great wine’. <\/p>\n
Consider the wines of a new world country. You’d expect that the best source of knowledge on these wines would be a local writer \u2013 someone on the ground in the midst of the action. But if they don’t have access to wines from around the world, and in particular the established old world classics, then they are lacking the context that would make them an even more useful authority. A critic from outside that country might have the advantage of better context, but then they have the disadvantage of distance, without the easy access a local wine writer might have. <\/p>\n
So my answer. If you are starting out now, in a crowded field, work hardest at being a niche player, but in order to do this well, you need to make an effort developing general context. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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