Award certificate lover

Karen MacNeil was named chairperson of the Center for Professional Wine Studies at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at Greystone in the Napa Valley this past January. MacNeil has a long list of credentials as a writer and wine and food educator. She has been published in more than 50 magazines and newspapers. Her most recent book, The Wine Bible, a 900-plus page work, won the 2001 Best Wine Book, an award given each year by Georges DuBoeuf. It is easily the best-selling wine book in the United States, with a reported sale of 180,000 copies to date. The average wine book sells about 6,000 copies.

But that's all the dry stuff of institutional press releases. Karen MacNeil, the person, is a passionate, dynamic wine lover and obviously a superb teacher. If Karen MacNeil were a wine, you would describe her as: "Bold, but with a supple and elegant reserve of depth and power. Sometimes quirky and sharp on the mid-palate; finishes with depth and concentration." But she would hate that description.

W&V: If you could be wine dictator, what single thing would you do to make wine more accessible to the consumer?

MacNeil: I think I would change the language we use to describe wine. For better or worse, we have adapted the British way of thinking, writing and talking about wine. We haven't yet begun to really think through all the ways wine can be effectively communicated, talked about and hence remembered. What we know is just one modality. I'd like to see us be a little more creative and broad-based in how we talk about wine. I think that is what's holding a lot of people back. I've been criticized myself for my descriptions. I once described a wine as being like Marilyn Monroe. People are going to remember that wine.

W&V: Why wine? What got you started?

MacNeil: I started as a food writer in New York. I was 19 when I began trying to get food articles published. I collected 320 rejection slips, which I saved for years. When I was 22, I sold a piece to the Village Voice. I was so young and naive at the time that I assumed food writers also knew about wine. Later, I learned that wasn't true. I didn't realize that most food writers thought they didn't need to know about wine. I wanted to learn more about wine, but at the time--it was the late 1970s--there were no real classes in New York. I was very lucky at the time to know some of the older wine writers in New York. One of them let me tag along to tastings, often quite incredible tastings. I was terrified. There I was, tasting with men like Frank Prial and Alexis Bespaloff. One thing that impressed me was their sense of discipline. A tasting was not a party. They treated wine with a huge amount of respect. Having that as a model has been wonderful. I hear myself decades later, telling my students to get serious, to pay attention, to do more homework. Nothing can bring out the school marm in me more than seeing a young sommelier who is more flash than knowledge.

W&V. I recently spoke to a California wine producer who said one of the big reasons he exported to the UK was that the English wine writers took wine more seriously. He told me that he learned something about his wine when he tasted with them.

MacNeil: Yes, I believe they have a more professional approach. We have this wonderful lifestyle in California, like southern France or Tuscany, but the downside of wine as a lifestyle is you can get too lackadaisical.

W&V: What is the most memorable wine you have ever tasted? Not the best, but most memorable?

MacNeil: Being a writer and educator, I've had the very great luck to taste wines in cellars all over the world. Over the past 20 years, there have literally been dozens of times when I'm standing in a cellar or winery, tasting the wine, listening to the winemaker and all of a sudden, I'm so mesmerized by the wine, by the experience, that it's absolutely hypnotic. In those moments, wine seems to me to be truly primordial. Like food, our attachment to it can be unconsciously profound. So, the single most memorable wine? There can never be a single one--and I hope, by the way, that there are a lot more hypnotic moments to come.

W&V: Your husband (Dennis Fife) is a wine producer. Do you taste together?

MacNeil: Throughout our entire marriage, Dennis and I have tasted together every night--about a case of wine. These are for the most part wines I need to taste as a journalist (some are samples, some are wines I buy). We spend a good deal of time doing this--often two hours--because I take notes in the process. We have similar palates, but I think I'm a tougher critic than he is. At the end of the tasting we will have with dinner the wine or wines we thought would be interesting to taste again with food. Since we only taste a little bit out of each bottle, we give the rest of the bottle to waiters or employees or someone trying to learn about wine who would benefit.

W&V: Why has it taken the CIA so long to set up a wine program?

MacNeil: Two points: There is a full-fledged wine program at the CIA in New York. Every person who goes through the program is required to take the wine program, which is more than most culinary schools do. When the CIA came here seven years ago, it began and continues as an educational facility for adult professionals. The average age of my students is 40. The CIA mission has always been a culinary mission, trying to raise the educational level of the young chefs of America and by doing that to raise the level of American cuisine. When I started teaching wine classes here as a visiting instructor, everyone was quite surprised by how successful those first classes were.

The CIA asked me to do a feasibility study. What if we took the plunge into wine? I looked at everything being done in the U.S., including professional classes and basic classes for consumers. If you talk to people over the age of 35, you find that the vast majority have taught themselves about wine. I found that even for the certifications being offered, the students had to study on their own. The CIA has spent a lot of time and effort learning how to teach people.

W&V: How many classes are being taught now?

MacNeil: We have 29 classes lasting one week. We have found that five days is about as long as most professionals can take off. It is a very intense experience, too. It's like a language immersion class. The students are exhausted by the end of the day.

W&V: How many teachers do you have and how did you find them?

MacNeil: There are 10 adjunct instructors. When I was choosing instructors, I thought of all the people I have seen teach. Almost anyone with good wine knowledge can make a 45-day presentation. But it takes a different level of skill to teach seven hours a day for five straight days. They have to really understand how to create a program.

W&V: Whom do you hope to reach? Chefs? People in the trade?

MacNeil: Chefs represent a very small percentage of our students. We are working hard at trying to crack that market, but for whatever reason, most American chefs feel that wine is outside their area. I don't get it. A flavor is a flavor, whether it is liquid or solid. I think getting chefs into wine is one of the last frontiers. If you are traveling in Europe and want a local wine recommendation, you can ask a chef.

W&V: Who are you reaching?

MacNeil: People in the trade--distributors, retailers, hospitality workers, food and beverage managers, restaurant managers, wine buyers, caterers, people who work for wineries both in marketing and public relations. We have even had winery owners.

W&V: Many of the larger companies must have their own wine programs?

MacNeil: Yes, they do. But we are trying to do something different. The big wine companies have education programs that are often an asset to the industry. They are about specific products. What we are doing is saying to them, "We know how to teach wine knowledge." Our program can be an adjunct to a product-specific program.

W&V: How would you compare your program with the Master of Wine program in London?

MacNeil: The MW is an exam, not a course of study. It is really, really hard. Many people take it for personal reasons, to demonstrate their own expertise. We wanted to do something a little more practical. Not easy, but achievable. I think the MW certificate remains, and will always remain, one of the great achievements in the world of wine.

W&V: I understand that your program is not intended for consumers, but will you be looking at ways to make wine more user-friendly for the consumer?