We are all too aware that, apart from Alder’s incisive monthly despatches from California and Sam Cole-Johnson’s great reports from Napa Valley, our coverage of the American wine scene has not been as comprehensive as we would like it to be.
We have accordingly promoted Elaine Chukan Brown (pictured above with me on a stage in Napa in February 2020) to the post of executive editor US, with the brief of expanding our appeal to American wine lovers. She has been writing for us since 2015 and you can read how we introduced her then. But she has grown enormously in stature over the last seven years and is hugely respected in the world of wine today having won more titles than you can shake a stick at. For example:
- Wine Communicator of the Year 2020, International Wine & Spirit Competition and Vinitaly
- Wine Leader 2020, Wine Business Monthly
- One of the Most Inspiring People in Wine 2019, Wine Industry Network
- One of the 50 Most Influential Women in Wine, WINWSA China
- Legend in Wine Education Award 2021, The Hue Society
Elaine, whose special interests include diversity and inclusion, sustainability and mentoring, is well known in many parts of the wine world. She is still based in Sonoma in the heart of northern California wine country and expects to share her impressions often on what’s going on in (mainly) American wine.
She will be helped enormously by the talented Samantha Cole Johnson who has been providing thorough reports on wine production techniques in cellars from Willamette, Barossa and Napa Valleys as well as her stunningly original recent series on vineyard labour. Sam has been based in Napa recently but will be moving back to her base in Oregon later this month and will be principally responsible for our coverage of Oregon and Washington. Read more about her here.
Other recent additions to our editorial team have been James Lawther MW, whose base in Bordeaux complements that of Matthew Hayes in Burgundy. (In these pandemic-restricted times it helps to have boots on the ground, especially when they belong to fine, opinionated writers with several decades of wine experience to their name.) See these profiles of James Lawther MW and Matthew Hayes.
And last but not least, we now have Paula Sidore on board writing about German wine. She is based near Bonn, is co-founder of TRINK magazine, and was appointed by our previous German specialist Michael Schmidt, no less. Read her life story here.
Our new owners Recurrent Ventures are determined to continue to expand both the team and what’s on offer at JancisRobinson.com, I’m delighted to say.
My new title, by the way, is editor in chief. Red pencil tucked behind my ear at all times.
