So sorry to hear about your mother, I said. So sudden and so young. Did she work outside the home? Oh yes, they said. She had a big garden.

Eight Italian varietal wines, made from native grapes, from Mt. Etna, Montepulciano, and Barolo. Such wines are, by nature, uniquely expressive of territorio, yet despite their far-flung distribution, the three red grapes evince strong kinship. My latest: www.makerstable.com/p/notable-ea...

My interview with wine writer and photographer Kevin Day about his new book. www.makerstable.com/p/opening-a-...

New on Notable — Wines for sweater weather www.makerstable.com/p/notable-la...

G.D. Vajra wines from Italy are fantastic. @megmaker.com what a great interview! If you are familiar with Vajra this is an interesting and educating read. If you aren't familiar you should be and this may help you get started.

Judy O’Kane masterfully summarizes the inaugural Pinot Noir & Identity Symposium, including keynotes and paper sessions. She deftly encapsulates my own talk on the lexicons and motifs of wine writing about Pinot Noir. (My full paper is forthcoming in WFW 91.) worldoffinewine.com/news-feature...

“Find a trusted person, someone who won’t break your heart, and ask them to read it. Don’t offer a preamble or back story. Don’t explain it. Just let them read it. Once they’ve finished, ask them to answer three questions:” www.makerstable.com/p/ask-three-...

If you are contemplating a tour of New England to gape at fall foliage, get here soon. Peak will happen in the next two weeks, if not sooner. We are in severe drought and the trees are just so over it.

Around the winemaking world, there's a growing interest in the potential of hybrid grapes. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/d...

What's happening with Jimmy Kimmel is about politics and power.

Notes on wines from Vinho Verde, Barolo, Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. www.makerstable.com/p/notable-ea...

“Formal wine training wasn’t seen as an urgent requirement for writers back then. That’s partly because it was almost entirely unavailable.” www.makerstable.com/p/learn-wine...

I didn’t meet Anthony Bourdain once. We didn’t meet in Paris, in the Charles de Gaulle Airport. I was flying to Bordeaux and so was he. My latest: www.makerstable.com/p/just-sit-a...

“The main thing is to get going, because the ideas come when the pen starts moving. It’s a practical matter: The hand needs to write words, so the brain comes up with something for it to say.” www.makerstable.com/p/get-it-in-...

Font matters.

Hundred Hills Winery is a young project in the rolling landscape southeast of Oxford. I visited on a sultry day in early July, striding the chalky rows before tasting wines in the cellar. My report: www.makerstable.com/p/sparkling-...

www.makerstable.com/p/london-bac... #writing #memoir

My local public radio stations, NHPR and VPR, just got more of my money. #publicbroadcasting

“It was that phrase, ‘dutiful hagiography,’ that reached out from the page and grabbed me by the collar. Because who among us has not read such a profile of a winemaker, or even of a particular wine itself, in the pages of a contemporary wine magazine?” www.makerstable.com/p/no-saints-...

A good piece of writing is a complicated machine. It has a shiny outer shell wrapped around complex inner mechanics. The shell is the surface narrative. It is the topic, and it is almost never the story. www.makerstable.com/p/topic-and-...

My latest essay: www.makerstable.com/p/daily-evid...

U.S. wine export markets have contracted substantially. In April, the year-over-year export value dropped by 41.4%, worsening the 28% decline recorded in March. The three main export destinations for U.S. wine—Canada (-93%), the UK (-29%), and China (-70%)—all reported significant decreases.

“Here at Vajra, we work with science and consciousness. In Italian: scienza e coscienza. The root is about knowledge itself. You know the science—the scienza, technical things—and coscienza says you judge with your heart.” www.makerstable.com/p/an-afterno... #wine #barolo #italianwine

"The El Mordjene affair...wasn’t really about hazelnut spreads. It was about nostalgia, memory, injustice, nationalism, globalization, decolonization, protectionism, racism, identity, immigration, invasion—the same things that all arguments are about nowadays." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

megmaker.substack.com/p/are-we-try... #wine #writing

Evidently I'm someone who uses “execrable” in a dream and also someone who remembers using “execrable” in a dream.

I’m writing a piece that’s really innovative, total crap, or both.

“An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing, but if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.” My latest: megmaker.substack.com/p/start-in-t... #writing #amwriting #writingcraft #nonfiction

I’m thrilled to learn I won 2nd Place in the 2025 World Food Photography Awards in the category Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year / Places. Many thanks to the judges and organizers for this honor! Find all winning images at www.worldfoodphotographyawards.com/finalists-ga...

Alternative title: “What happened when Thomas Keller and MacKenzie Chung Fegan broke the Fourth Wall” www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaur...

Most wine writing leans into objective realities, but wine’s subjective truths are arguably more compelling. My latest column. www.circleofwinewriters.org/from-the-cha... #wine #writing #winewriting

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

“In some ways, this... [birds chirping] In some ways, this approach is... [birds chirping] Mmm, some ways this — what does that say?” — Meg and the birds and Whisper Transcription

I'm thrilled to announce that I've been selected as finalist in the World Food Photography Awards 2025. 📸 Winners will be announced next week. Fingers crossed! #photography #foodphotography

It’s a curious word, “nonfiction,” framed, as it is, in the negative: “not fictive.” Perhaps we feel more comfortable with this inverted etymology because although creative nonfiction is truthful, it’s not The Truth. My latest essay: megmaker.substack.com/p/the-contin... #writing #nonfiction

"What is voice?" megmaker.substack.com/p/what-is-vo...

“Talking is one kind of voice. It’s literal voice, but it’s not literary voice.” megmaker.substack.com/p/what-is-vo... #writing #amwriting

JUST IN: A federal judge in Vermont ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University who was arrested at his US citizenship interview and ordered deported.

I reached out to wine writers and economists for advice on handling the current moment. My latest column: www.circleofwinewriters.org/from-the-cha... #wine #winewriting #tradewar

Hummingbirds are nigh. www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...

Let this piece transport you to Tuscany! Best if you have a glass of wine, a little salumi, and some bread to accompany your reading! Ciao!

Sangiovese, the modern vinous king of Tuscany, is an alloyed grape, the offspring of a crossing of Ciliegiolo, which appeared here as early as the Middle Ages, and Calabrese di Montenuovo, introduced from the southern reaches of the Italian peninsula. Read more: terroirreview.com/2025/04/23/t...

I wrote a pep talk? I started with how I actually feel powerful that an expensive computer program that ate all of my work and that of all writers is still not as good as all of us it stole from. Then I went a few places. Anyway, it's here. mailchi.mp/e87ac78bc7b7...

✍🏼 Happy to learn I’ve been longlisted again in both writing categories in the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards. 🏆 Shortlists will be announced in July and winners in September. 🥂 Many thanks to the judges and organizers for this honor. #writing #winewriting #longform #shortform