Highlights Archives - Circle of Wine Writers

How to make money as a wine writer

Posted on September 20, 2026September 20, 2026 by Amanda Barnes

Amanda Barnes takes an honest look at the reality of how to survive and make money as a wine writer in 2026, in her Editor's Comment for this edition of The Circular on the economics of wine writing. Ever since my first jobs in journalism, I remember writing for free. As a young journalist, I accepted that I needed to do a fair share of unpaid work to gain experience, build a portfolio and, occas...

From the Chair: From competition to collaboration

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Meg Maker

Meg Maker analyses how our sphere as wine writers has changed over recent years, and what - if any - opportunities remain for writers to make an income in the future. As an active writer and chair of the Circle, I’m in routine contact with a diverse crowd of journalists, critics, and commentators about wine and spirits. I cannot recall any recent conversation in which my correspondent has reporte...

Time to pen a vinous tome?

Posted on September 20, 2026September 20, 2026 by Wink Lorch

Wink Lorch explores the economics of wine books and ways in which to publish them, by drawing on her own experiences and interviewing Circle members who’ve authored according to different models. While being anything but a licence to print money, books do nevertheless remain a valuable asset for wine writers, she finds. “I think if you write a book expecting to make money you will come ba...

The futurenomics of wine writing

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Janet Wang

On a relatively recently- but dramatically-changed landscape, Janet Z. Wang ponders the role and opportunities of our occupation going forward. She discovers some substantial silver linings, based on originality and sensory experience, which cannot be machine generated, in a somewhat otherwise cloudy forecast. While information may have become cheap, judgment has not, she observes. For mu...

AI and the wine writer

Posted on June 3, 2026 by Amanda Barnes

“Knowing everything you do about me, what would you imagine are my feelings about AI in the world of wine writing?” It took Claude less than a minute to come up with a 610-word response to my question that, honestly, wasn’t bad. And slightly sycophantic (because AI is always so much more polite than humans). So, did Claude get it right? “Based on everything you've shared over time, I suspect...

From the Chair: Personal taste

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Meg Maker

Meg Maker questions what makes wine writers unique in a world of automation and AI in her column and Letter from the Chair. I put off writing this Letter from the Chair. What do I know about AI? I’m not a mathematician or computer scientist. I’m not a technology researcher or academic. I did take a course in graduate school about the philosophy of mind in which I learned about the Turing Test and...

Tuning in to the tools of the AI trade

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Per Karlsson

Per and Britt Karlsson already use artificial intelligence quite extensively in their work, but certainly not to write text, nor to create images, which are two of their core vinous activities. So, how do they use AI? Here, Per takes a look at some of the areas where it can come into play. “Do you use AI?” Today, this is no longer really a question. We use AI, everyone uses AI. You cannot refuse ...

Honing the human touch

Posted on May 30, 2026May 30, 2026 by Simon J Woolf

Simon J Woolf sets out his stall on how wine writers will ultimately survive AI, and even thrive from it. While it will not make us redundant – far from it – we need to work out how it best fits into our workflows, without allowing it to do the writing, which remains our greatest strength, he opines. It takes a brave person to stand up in front of six publishers and ask them whether they would co...

How AI is advancing ampelography

Posted on May 30, 2026May 30, 2026 by Dr José Vouillamoz

From DNA to data, artificial intelligence is beginning to read the vine, according to grape geneticist and ampelographer Dr José Vouillamoz, who also explores whether it will also decide its future. The possibilities are boundless, with an electronic nose already being used to classify cultivars, and Vouillamoz, one of the world's leading authorities on grape variety origins through DNA profiling,...

From the Chair: Help another wine writer in 2026

Posted on December 23, 2025December 23, 2025 by Meg Maker

In her column this month, Circle Chair Meg Maker encourage members to help and mentor colleagues as their New Year’s resolution for 2026. Wine as a category is experiencing myriad existential threats: climatic, meteorological, social, cultural, financial. It’s a destabilising time, but as wine commentators our role is to help make sense of it all, prying apart false and shaky claims, dismantling ...