Members’ Voices: How are you using AI, or not, in your wine communication?

From editors and journalists to photographers and educators, our members are approaching AI in very different ways. While some have embraced it as a practical tool for organisation and workflow, few are willing to hand over the creative process itself. We asked members how they are using AI, or choosing not to, in their wine communication.   “When I'm wearing my journalist hat, AI can be a ...
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Let’s talk about… Keeping afloat?

In our online Circular seminar on the crisis facing French vignerons, Helen Savage, sets the scene by showing the seriousness of La crise viticole, before concentrating on case studies on how three wineries are faring. A highlight of the session is Helen’s interview with Fanny Rey of Domaine des Graves d’Ardonneau, who left the prospect of a career as an opera singer behind to return to a family w...
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Perusing Planeta’s broad and colourful palette of Sicilian wines

Robert Smyth takes a tour through Sicily’s wine regions while visiting Planeta, a prolific producer with vines and wines spanning the large Italian island.  After having long enjoyed Planeta’s wines from afar, it was a wonderful to finally get the opportunity to visit them in Sicily, and also catch up with their Hungarian winemaker Patricia Tóth. Driving up the winding roads to Planeta’s winery ...
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Age like a fine rośe

Libertation Tardive, in tandem with renowned rosé expert and Circle-member Liz Gabay MW, take a deep dive into the question of how well refined rośe can age. Dominic Buckwell, a co-founder of the aforementioned organisation, whose mantra is “Great wines take time”, and also a Circle-member, reports. In October 2025, the not-for-profit organisation called Liberation Tardive, co-founded by myself, ...
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All change in Alsace

Sue Eames scopes and scans Alsatian soils, studying how the different grapes varieties perform in them, and also senses the strong shift to organic and biodynamic farming. Back in March, I was lucky enough to be invited on the Association of Wine Educators’ visit to Alsace, and found it be a region that has changed dramatically since when I last visited in 2022. We learnt so much about how the di...
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All hail Acadie Blanc

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Substack for wine writers

CWW Chair Meg Maker shares her experiences on Substack and talks to other wine writers migrating to the online platform. Five months ago I migrated my wine publication, Maker’s Table, from WordPress to Substack. I was sick of the infrastructure demands and expense of WordPress and eager to take advantage of tools baked into the Substack platform. Those include text and video posts, newsletter ema...
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Chinese wine condensed

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How Satake shaped sake

William F. O’Connor polishes up our knowledge on the company that made wine-like sake possible.  What is the original alcoholic beverage of Japan? Is this a simple question that the vast majority of people are likely to answer correctly? Well, suspicious readers will have accurately guessed that the rhetorical question posed above suggests that the answer is not sake, or nihon-shu. It just has to...
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