In this episode, guest Meridith May and host Jess Baum discuss Meridith’s previous careers, including a fascinating turn as a monster truck driver; the major life milestone Jess marked with The SOMM Journal; the unexpected country making wines that taste like they are from Peidmont; and what it's really like to taste dozens of wines in a day.
Meridith May is the owner of two national U.S. wine and spirits trade publications: The SOMM Journal and The Tasting Panel. Meridith’s career in the media spans over 40 years, first as a Vice President of Marketing for Los Angeles-based KIIS FM/KRLA radio, and then as Senior Editor at Patterson’s Beverage Journal, which she ran until 2007 when she purchased the name and started The Tasting Panel, now the leading national wine and spirits industry magazine. She purchased the SOMM Journal in 2013, and it is now the leading wine education print publication for trade professionals.
The Tasting Panel Women’s Issue Jess and Meridith discussed in today’s episode will be released digitally on May 1. If you liked this episode, please rate, review, and share our podcast to help others find it, too.
Meridith May: Education is everything. That's the only way to keep the wine industry growing.
Elizabeth Archer: You are listening to the Soil to Soul podcast, brought to you by Bonterra Organic Estates. Soil to Soul is hosted by Jess Baum, Bonterra's Senior Director of [00:00:30] Regenerative Impact. Season 2 features accomplished and fascinating wine writers across the spectrum of outlets and backgrounds. Today's guest is Meridith May, owner of two National US wine and spirits trade publications, The SOMM Journal and The Tasting Panel. Meridith's career in the media spans over 40 years, first as a vice president of marketing for Los Angeles-based KIIS-FM and then as a senior editor at Patterson's Beverage Journal, which she ran until [00:01:00] 2007 when she purchased the name and started The Tasting Panel, now the leading National Wine & Spirits Industry magazine. Meridith purchased The SOMM Journal in 2013 and it is now the leading wine education print publication for trade professionals. Listen in as Meridith and Jess discuss Meridith's previous careers, including a fascinating turn as a monster truck driver, the major life milestone Jess marked with The SOMM Journal, the unexpected country making wines that tastes [00:01:30] like they're from Piedmont, and what it's really like to taste dozens of wines in a day.
Jess Baum: Welcome, Meridith May. We are so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Meridith May: I'm happy to be here.
Jess Baum: I can't wait to jump into this conversation. We've been looking forward to having it with you. I'm going to jump right in with my favorite question. Why wine?
Meridith May: [00:02:00] Well, it was almost an accident for me. I've been in a few different careers from public relations to marketing and a long stint in radio where I was behind the scenes with some famous disc jockeys, and always was into food and then got into writing about food and then reviewing food. So it was a natural progression, but it never happened, never got into wine. And one day when I left radio and started working for a [00:02:30] trade publication, I BSed my way into being an editor for a California trade wine magazine and started interviewing experts. And that was 25 years ago, and then I got into wine and spirits.
Jess Baum: What an interesting entry point into wine, that food was what brought you in. I think it says something about the whole fake it until you make it thing, we just got to show up and do it [00:03:00] and it comes, it happens.
Meridith May: That's right. I interview a lot of people in the industry, as you know, and so many people have the story, their family, they had restaurants, or they tasted their first sip of burgundy when they were 12 years old, and all these great really go back in time stories and I got started pretty light.
Jess Baum: I think it's so important to share diverse experiences with how we start and when, because so many do start [00:03:30] at different points. You started your career in radio, as you previously mentioned, and you were vice president of marketing for a very famous radio station. It seems like you took a big risk by switching to wine writing mid-career, but clearly it paid off. What other risks have you taken in your career that have gotten you to where you are today?
Meridith May: Well, when I was vice president of marketing for KIIS I again was behind the scenes, worked with Rick Dees very closely, and he was a real foodie, [00:04:00] so we got to meet a lot of people in the food industry, but I also got to meet people outside the industry, people in the entertainment industry. We were the radio station for the Raiders who were then in Los Angeles, and met some very, very high-powered clients. So my husband at the time was a Motorsport promoter and he was promoting monster truck shows across the country, he had some big clients like U.S. Tobacco and Goodyear, [00:04:30] and I said, "What if I get a sponsor too?" So I pitched one of my big clients, which was then AM/PM mini markets, and they said, "Yeah, we'll give you a million dollars if you make appearances at different stores, we'll help build you a special truck." So not only did I make appearances, but I drove monster trucks for seven years in competition on weekends. Only professional lady monster truck driver. I think that's a risk. That was a long time [00:05:00] ago. It was about 30 years ago.
Jess Baum: Absolutely amazing. And what was it like to drive a monster truck?
Meridith May: I hated every minute. I was in it for what I thought was the fame and the glory, but it was the nine-year-old boys who really admired me. They would line up for my autographs. Of course, the money was great. And I was still working in radio and still doing these amazing food adventures with the DJs [00:05:30] and writing about food and had my own radio show on food, so I had this other life, but on weekends I guess I was a weekend truck warrior.
Jess Baum: What a story. You've been a powerful player in two industries. Well, now three. First radio, now wine, but also monster truck driving. What obstacles did you face as a woman in these roles?
Meridith May: I really never faced any obstacles. I just was able to do what I was able to [00:06:00] do. I loved writing, I loved marketing, I loved promoting whoever I was working for. I really don't have a woman's story about being knocked down. I had a lot of women mentors and I think that's why.
Jess Baum: Do you think we're getting closer to a time when we won't have to ask powerful women questions like this?
Meridith May: Yes, I think that we are definitely getting to a time when we don't have to ask women these questions. I did not face any obstacles in [00:06:30] being a woman in any of my careers. I never felt knocked down. I never felt I was paid less. I was able to do what I was able to do.
Jess Baum: You own and operate two wine publications, The SOMM Journal and The Tasting Panel magazine, which have a combined reach of over 135,000 readers. What purpose and passion [00:07:00] fuel these publications, and what synergies exist between them?
Meridith May: They're both geared towards the trade 100%. They're both geared towards on and off premise buyers, distributors, importers, but the difference between them... Well, let's talk about the passion. What the passion is is being the heroes for the trade. We're not consumer. We're not for the collectors. We are sophisticated magazines that have [00:07:30] a voice, a platform for wine and spirits and the people who are in our industry, the professionals. So that's our purpose and that's our passion. And for Tasting Panel, the passion is more about branding and identifying the who's who in the industry, who's drinking what. And for The SOMM Journal, the passion is about education and what we call edutainment, where we're also doing events.
We sponsor SommCon, we're part of the Wine & [00:08:00] Spirits Wholesalers of America, we're partners with SommFoundation, we are working with The Culinary Institute on a big event, the sustainability summit. We've got our hands out to really embrace everything that's going on in our industry as much as possible. We can't be everywhere. So the synergies are uniting the beverage directors and having a voice for them, for the distributors to use our magazines as a marketing tool on the street to sell [00:08:30] their brands when they walk into an account. So hopefully we'll keep growing, and we have been growing now. Tasting Panel is going into, its 20th year, and SOMM Journal has been in existence under my tutelage since 2013.
Jess Baum: I have such a special place in my heart for The SOMM Journal. I actually have a copy right here, the April May 2022 issue where a group of five of us women behind the brand at Bonterra [00:09:00] were photographed, and it was five days before I gave birth to my daughter.
Meridith May: You were the pregnant one on the cover.
Jess Baum: I was the pregnant one on the cover, yep. My daughter's first cover shoot. That was such a special place in my heart and was really an amazing day with powerful women behind the scenes and in front of the camera, and was just really beautiful. So thank you for supporting us in doing that.
Meridith May: Oh, well, women [00:09:30] are guiding our publications. I've got a great team from my managing editor to our senior staff editor to our senior wine and spirits editor, our event director. So we've got really some wonderful management. Some good men too.
Jess Baum: So let's talk about wine scores for a minute. Everyone loves wine scores and they can be a super useful metric, but for the wine tasters themselves, tasting and scoring wine must become somewhat of a slog. How do [00:10:00] you keep interest and focus on a day when you might be tasting dozens of wines back to back?
Meridith May: I think that is a brilliant question, because people think, oh, we're having a good time, but it's like homework really. If you think about sitting down to dinner and tasting five wines and just enjoying them because you're in the business, when you go to maybe a lunch or a dinner with clients or winemakers or whatever wine. But when I'm at home [00:10:30] and I have to taste a lot of wines, so you put them out there, taste through them, write my notes, and then taste them with dinner or some kind of food. I don't let them not have something to go with because I don't think that's fair. So I'm working, I'm working through my meals. Anytime I eat at home, or in Arizona where I live you cannot take bottles to restaurants, which is very sad. When I lived in California, we would just take bottles [00:11:00] to restaurants. But anyway.
So I'm writing my notes and I'm evaluating while I'm eating instead of relaxing and eating. So that's maybe my biggest complaint. But then I got to go back the next day to the computer, write up the notes, put them on the database, contact the client to let them know what the scores are, get them to the editors. It's process. And when I'm really overloaded, when I tasted 160 wines for the Rhône Valley for a booklet that we did, [00:11:30] I did have some help, we had one of my editors help. But you use the word slog, I think slog is a good word, but it's work and it's part of what we do, and the brands really need us, I guess. I must be helping somebody because we get a lot of wines for review.
Jess Baum: I have to say, as a brand who is one of the beneficiaries of your tastings and scoring and your notes, we really appreciate you bringing a focused and refreshed attitude to [00:12:00] it, even in the middle of what must, as we said, feel like a slog and must bring some sort of taste fatigue, I would imagine.
Meridith May: Yeah, but I don't want to make it sound like it's not fun. Now we have Master of Wine, Bob Paulinski is on the team, Michael Franz, who has been in the industry forever and is a teacher at a Washington DC wine school. We have Virginie Boone who's doing our spirits, we've got Ruth Tobias doing our sparkling. So we've spread out so we can enjoy [00:12:30] more. And I think that's my goal for this year and next is to share the love, because I know that recently, for instance, we had one of our reviewers taste your wines, and I was sad not to taste them, but they have a different perspective and I think it's great. And he loved the wines.
Jess Baum: I love that idea of sharing the love and bringing and maintaining the passion for what you do. How many pitches do you receive a day about wineries or wine regions?
Meridith May: Oh my gosh. [00:13:00] Not just about wineries and wine regions. Yes, so many. We only have so much room and I don't like saying no to good ideas, but bad ideas that's not a hard decision.
Jess Baum: Is there a pet peeve that makes you hit delete and what inspires you to respond, "More information, please"?
Meridith May: Yes. The biggest pet peeve is when the greeting is hey there, or just greets me by another name, which happens more than not, which is [00:13:30] ridiculous. Or if I just know I'm part of just some vast blast, that's just a delete. What inspires me is when I feel like I'm getting a custom letter from somebody. Even if it's not an idea I really love or I really can use, I respond to it and I say, "Hey, well, I can't use that, but maybe we can take it in a little different direction." I like personal stuff. I'll even take a phone call. Phone calls are fine because we hardly get any nowadays. We get so many emails. But [00:14:00] I just think know who we are, know that we're trade, know that we're a print magazine, not a blog. We get pitches saying, "Hey, I'd like to get on your blog." I think people pay PR firms too much money sometimes. Oh, it's Valentine's Day this week, can we get on your radar? It's like we're done with February, we're working on May right now. I feel sorry for the client, because they're being misused.
Jess Baum: What is a favorite pitch that you've received [00:14:30] recently?
Meridith May: I got a pitch from a writer saying that they would like to do a roundup of different people from a specific city. So it would be wine directors, mixologists, chefs, and I love those stories, because we don't do the 35 under 30. We don't do those. I think they're very consumer-y and it just narrows things down. But if we do a series of people, inspirational people stories, that's the kind of [00:15:00] pitches I liked. So I went with it. And this was a novice writer too, and just giving her a chance.
Jess Baum: Well, we look forward to reading those stories highlighted in different cities.
Meridith May: I've got a great one coming up on women from Charleston and Boston and Washington DC. We have our big women issue coming up in May.
Jess Baum: I can't wait to get that issue. What are you excited to be writing about right now and what trends are you most inspired [00:15:30] or surprised by?
Meridith May: I'm very excited about our April cover story for The SOMM Journal, and it's on sustainability, which I know you guys are very much into, and with genitive farming, the Paso Robles area specifically, and what this area, what this region has developed and how it's changing the region, not only because of climate change, but because they're waking up to technology that is really needed in an area that doesn't get [00:16:00] enough water and pretty hot. So I'm very excited about that. And we've got Laura DePasquale writing an essay on sustainability trends, and the cover is a vineyard with sheep. I love animals on our cover.
Jess Baum: Beautiful. We love animals too, and we are certainly partial to sheep on vineyards.
Meridith May: I wish I could have more dogs in my magazine and find more reasons.
Jess Baum: Well, we would love to have you visit Bonterra Organic Estates [00:16:30] when we have the sheep on the vineyard, and we also have sheep dogs that help corral them. I love a Great Pyrenees that looks like a sheep from afar.
Meridith May: Sounds wonderful.
Jess Baum: The wine industry is at a bit of a crossroads at the moment. What's your take on the future of the industry [00:17:00] and what will set a winery apart as consumer habits change?
Meridith May: I'm not in touch with the consumer, but I am in touch with the beverage buyers, the wine directors, and I know what they would like to see, of course. They would like to see more variety in what they can offer to their customers away from the everyday cabs and shards. So I think if they don't educate their customers more, whether it's on or off premise, we are going to see [00:17:30] less interesting wines if they don't sell. That worries me. What I love about our magazines is that we are a platform for a lot of new innovative wines, varieties. We have stories to tell. I just tasted wines from Poland that were exquisite. They were reminiscent of a great mineral-driven wine from Piedmont. And I think we need to expand the world. If you look at our January issue of The Tasting Panel, we cover the world, we talk [00:18:00] about a world of wine. So education is everything, whether it's us professionals or the consumer, that's the only way to keep the wine industry growing, and not just going to RTD land.
Jess Baum: Your story about Poland is perhaps a silver lining of the climate crisis, that there are these new up-and-coming wine regions where historically grapes couldn't fully ripen or the climate wouldn't allow for the full [00:18:30] expression. So I'm really interested to see what happens with that shifting landscape and where the next great wine region will be that's unexpected.
Meridith May: Between Croatia and Slovenia. Hungary still is not just making the Tokaj, whether it's dry or sweet, but they're coming out with some red wines that are exquisite. But it's not just about climate change, it's about importers and buyers [00:19:00] reaching an agreement and distribute. You know how it is. It's everybody reaching an agreement that a group thought we're going to get these out there, but still loving our domestic wines, the fact the organic biodynamic and how important that is for our sanity and our health and our future.
Jess Baum: I want to ask a little bit more about this term that you mentioned earlier of edutainment. It just brings to mind how important education is, that [00:19:30] educating distributors, retailers on and off premise is critical because that is what then educates the consumer in many ways. As a really influential person in the wine trade, can you tell me more about this edutainment that you talked about before?
Meridith May: Right. Well, of course the obvious is our written articles, especially in SOMM Journal, where we go into detail on regions and soils and winemaker styles and [00:20:00] terroir versus technique and all that, but then how we expand it is our seminars at SommCon, our seminars at The Culinary Institute, our dinners. So we do custom dinners with our brand clients. In any city of choice, we invite the buyers and we sit there and educate them on what we're drinking, why we're drinking it. We do blind tastings. We call them speed tastings, where we round up 10 top wine buyers in [00:20:30] that city, they taste through 10 wines, and then each one is and discussed. We're going to be doing a series of master classes coming up this year in different cities, full day excursions into regions and tastings and competitions. It's blowing up on the event side for us, and that's because our goal is to educate and entertain with some great food and good speakers and networking [00:21:00] and just bringing people together.
Jess Baum: Sounds like a great time.
Meridith May: We need to do it with you guys soon.
Jess Baum: We would love that. Absolutely. One last question, Meridith. What bottle of wine are you saving in your cellar for a special occasion?
Meridith May: I'm going to laugh at that one, because every chance I get to drink at home with dinner, my husband and I love to cook together, I have my obligation wines. So my obligation [00:21:30] wines are all the wines I have to taste and review within a certain time period, so I so rarely get to that special bottle. They sit there and sit there and when am I going to taste it, when am I going to taste it? So we go out to eat and then we buy our... So it seems like I have to go and buy them instead of having them in my collection.
Jess Baum: Meridith, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. We appreciate everything you do in the industry, and it was a joy to speak with you.
Meridith May: Well, I'm so happy that [00:22:00] you asked me. I'm honored. I really am.
Elizabeth Archer: Thank you for listening to The Soil to Soul Podcast, hosted by Jess Baum and produced by me, Elizabeth Archer, right here in Mendocino County on behalf [00:22:30] of Bonterra Organic Estates, the largest regenerative organic winery in the United States. To learn more and to get 20% off your wine order, visit bonterra.com and use the promo code Soil to Soul. We're especially proud of our estate collection, comprising four affordable and exceptional regenerative, organic certified wines from our Hopland vineyards. Original music for the podcast was composed by Mendocino County musician, Julian Sterling. Thanks again to today's [00:23:00] guest, Meridith May. The Tasting Panel women's issue Jess and Meridith discussed in today's episode will be released digitally on May 1st. If you liked this episode, please rate, review and share our podcast to help others find it too. Next week on the podcast, we'll talk with poet and James Beard Award-winning journalist, Betsy Andrews. See you then!