Lexie Smith
Shana Clarke is a wine, sake, and travel writer and author. Her work has appeared in Decanter, Saveur, Fortune, NPR, Wine Enthusiast, Vinepair, Conde Nast Traveler, and Hemispheres. She was shortlisted for the Louis Roederer 2020 International Wine Writers’ Awards and ranked one of the “Top 20 U.S. Wine Writers That Wineries Can Work With” by Beverage Trade Network. She holds a Level 3-Advanced Certificate from Wine & Spirit Education Trust and is a Certified Sake Sommelier. In addition, she is the author of 150 Vineyards You Need To Visit Before You Die and the contributing author to the North America section of The Wine Lover’s Bucket List. Shona a girl after my own heart Welcome to the show. Before we dive in, I always love to start with where is home base and what do you like to do? Outside of work for fun, although your job is fun to me. Anyway. So Where's where's home base and what do you do outside of work?
Shana Clarke
Home base is New York City and down in the lower east side for any New Yorkers are those familiar with New York, outside of outside of wine, I love going to jazz clubs. My husband and I have a real passion for live music. So that tends to be one of our frequent John's, when we're not traveling,
Lexie Smith
Jazz clubs in New York, there's just something like cool, and I just picture underground and something kind of sexy about it. I love that.
Shana Clarke
That's a pretty apt description of many of them.
Lexie Smith
Yes, there you go. And to me, what do I like to do outside of work is a lot of what you do for your job. So literally, I think in my book, you have the coolest job on the planet, like you win at life. So let's, let's rewind time, and how the heck did you get to this part of your career? What came before today?
Shana Clarke
Sure. I mean, it's one of those twisty things where you never quite know where you're going to end up. But long story short, I was in fashion for about 10 years. And while I was in fashion, I started getting interested in wine, I began taking classes. And the more I learned, the more I want to learn more. And it really just kind of became my passion. And they reached a point in my career with fashion where the company was doing a lot of changing. And it was a really good opportunity for me to get out and kind of pursue this interest in wine that I had. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do right away. It wasn't journalism. At first, I was doing more PR, I was doing marketing. I was working with wineries with wine companies. But I started to learn how to pitch and I always loved writing, I wrote a lot as a kid. I had a wine blog that I didn't share with anybody except my mom, literally. But it taught me really good discipline. And it taught me how to stay on a schedule. It taught me about deadlines. And so from there, I took a how to pitch class started pitching outlets. You know, once you kind of learn your first story, you start to gain some confidence. You have some clips that you can show other outlets, and it kind of just kept snowballing from there.
Lexie Smith
Okay, and at what point did you decide to pursue your certificate for sake.
Shana Clarke
So, sake was something that I always had a passion for sake and then when it came when my husband and I were getting married, we will end up going to Japan because we said well, where are we going to go? That's not wine because otherwise we're going to make it into a work trip. We decided on Japan we both thought it would be really a def very different from anything else that we ever do very cultural, but because we both liked sake we ended up visiting some sake breweries and so it kind of spurred me to continue on with education. So yeah, here I am also doing sake writing and really getting interested in the growing category of sake.
Lexie Smith
That is so freakin cool. I definitely have never met a sake sommelier, I have been to Japan I just went in October so my my ears and eyes perked up when I read that about you. I just think that's so so freakin cool. And quick, fun fact for everyone listening in for you to Shana. I did a little bit in wine PR myself. So I haven’t I talk about a lot. But I had a shorter about a year spent as a director of PR and marketing for a winery local to where I'm at in Santa Barbara. I also did a lot with wine brands through hospitality. And I just share that because I feel pretty confident with the process from where I sit, which is PR, but I'm really, really curious to hear about your process as a wine journalist. So let's start here. Let's start because you do a lot of freelance work. How do you go about curating your story ideas?
Shana Clarke
Sure. I think travel is one of the biggest for me, I think that you need to go somewhere to really understand the place to understand the wine to understand the culture behind it. So to be travel is probably my number one, it's to me, it's vitally important. I read a lot, I read a lot of newsletters, there's a lot of newsletters that come in daily with that kind of aggregate the top news stories, and it's a range of publications that they'll pull from. So I can find things in small community newspapers, that might pique my interest, but also some bigger stories, it'll round up press releases from other outlets that I may not have heard of before. So those are also really big for me. Definitely press releases from PR, from PR agencies and people that I work closely with, I think that that's always been a vital source for me. I think also just I'm very social. So I like getting out I like talking to people, I love doing coffee with people, a glass of wine with people, I think that the more you expose yourself to different people and different ideas, the more ideas Spark is pretty much how it works. Okay,
Lexie Smith
and I am curious as well, or do you like curate your travel? Do you pick truck, okay, I'm gonna go to x location, and turn it into a work trip, or is it more, you're assigned a story or you have a story and the travel kind of gets curated within that.
Shana Clarke
It's a little bit of both. So on press trips quite a bit from PR agencies and brands. And I'll go into it. And honestly, with those, I won't go into it with a confirmed story. Because I know that the purpose of those to really be educated. And I actually just did a podcast all about press trips and best practices on press trips for brands. But I it's to me, it's really hard to say I'm going to come out of it, knowing that this is the story that I'm writing, because you'll go in there. And sometimes you'll be like, that's not the story. This is the story, where you'll find something that's totally surprising that you think is so much more interesting than what you initially wanted to talk about. So for press trips like that, I'll go into it with a kind of a blank slate, essentially, where I'm just going to be a sponge and soak it up. There are other things where I am, I will travel, there's something that I'm really curious about something that I really want to know. And so for that no one I'm curating putting together those itineraries my own personal travel, then I'll work a little bit harder for confirmed story because sometimes the one oh, you know, they want to make sure they're getting something if they're gonna be putting out money for you. If it's a place that doesn't naturally press trips. For example, my husband and I, after our honeymoon to Japan, we went back to Japan. And but we went into it with confirmed stories. So I went into it knowing I was going to write about Yamanashi, their wine region, there were a couple of soccer stories that I was going to be working on, there are some travel stories as well. So in that kind of situation, in order to get funding, you kind of need to go into it with a proposal for the agency to say this is what I'm planning on doing. Hmm.
Lexie Smith
Okay. And in terms of the type of stories that you work on, in this niche, do you ever do product reviews? Or is it more a larger conversation piece? Or news or location specific, all the above? Or is there a specific kind of type of story that you really like to focus on?
Shana Clarke
What I've always kind of said is I look at culture through the lens of wine, that's pretty much how my approach to writing not exclusively but for me, that's the most interesting stories. So I like to think about what are we seeing out there in greater society? How is that translating into wine? Or vice versa? You know, what is it saying about history? What is it saying about current trends, you know, just in the greater world that we live in? So that's most of my approach on stories. That's what I like to write about. I do like to see you know, some breaking news stories I think are really interesting if it's the right one. I think I like data I'm not I like looking at numbers and trying to understand what the story is behind it. So i Those are pretty much the ones I don't do a ton of product reviews of pretty much never do. I don't think that that's really my bread and butter or my strengths either. I'd sometimes I think roundups are nice if you are trying to highlight like a certain category is something that's happening. It's good to be able to provide a few examples of that particular trend. But yeah, that's pretty much where my passions go.
Lexie Smith
So maybe more from a founder brand or publicist or agency standpoint, if you're representing a region that's really well known, or a location and wine country or maybe a it like a founder or new up and coming entrepreneur who has something really new, or those kinds of more the types of people or stories you want to hear about?
Shana Clarke
Yeah, pretty much. I always tell people, whenever they ask what's going to get my interest, I say, why now? Because that's the question that every single Editor gives us why now? Why are we interested in the story now? And so I need to know that this is something that's happening, and it's happening for a reason. And it's exciting. So that's, that's always been my biggest thing.
Lexie Smith
Such a great tip. So speaking of why now, something lately that's been coming up a lot on this show, and in the world is, is technology and its impact on our industry on journalism and PR. I'm just curious what role you see texts such as AI, right, because that's the buzzword, what part it may or may not play in the evolution of wine journalism, and and if that has any effect on how you go about or your approach to storytelling?
Shana Clarke
Sure. You know, I have not delved into AI as much as I need to, but I am working on that I'm looking into taking some continuing education classes actually about AI. I'm personally really intimidated by it. So I need somebody to guide me through it and to help me work through it. But I think it's going to be vital that we at least understand it and at least have a working knowledge of it, whether or not people want to implement it in how they work. That's up to them. And to be honest, like I said, I don't know enough about it to know how it's going to necessarily affect our work. But I think that we can't be scared of it, that we need to really make sure that we're understanding it and figuring it out in terms of how it's going to work best for each of us. I do think it's going to change things dramatically, though.
Lexie Smith
Yeah. Are there tools or you know, kind of earlier in our conversation you had mentioned you subscribe to newsletters and there's there's certain resources you turn to to get news or story ideas. Are there any technologies or platforms or things right now, that specifics, I guess, specific technologies or specific resources that you do use in your process?
Shana Clarke
I think if we're talking from a straight writing point, I use Scrivener a lot. I think the Scrivener, it's um, it's just a writing tool, they actually say that it's great for people who do novels and screenplays in longer form pieces. But I've just found it to be a really great visual way to write my story. So I can put my research in one place, put them side by side it to me, it just it works for me really well. I will dump things into Grammarly send it up to an editor to make sure that my copy is clean. I don't really tend to take its suggestions in terms of writing styles, because I think it doesn't quite capture voice well. But I do think that in terms of the little things missing or the or missing and like it can pick up on that really fast.
Lexie Smith
The first one is skriver Lee, what was it script
Shana Clarke
Scrivener?
Lexie Smith
I was off. I got the s right. Screen? Never heard of it. Okay, cool. I'll have to look into that. That's super interesting. Um, in terms of anyone who is looking at okay, let me let me preface this. When I was preparing for today's interview, I went back to my team and I was like, here's this amazing guests, we're gonna bring on the show, like, what questions do you guys have? And my producer outside of being my producer? What’s up, Ceili, she also is a journalist herself, and she she really dabbles in certain dishes. And I know music has been a big part. So this question came from her and I just want to give her a shot. But she's curious, what advice do you have for aspiring journalists interested in specializing in such niche topics, of course, for your example, being wine, but in general, for a journalist who may be really does want to get hyper focused, focused in a certain niche?
Shana Clarke
Sure. Number one, you got to be curious, you have to be really curious and also really open. So take any preconceived notions that you have and completely get rid of them, be very responsive, be very open and receptive to ideas that are coming at you or two different thoughts that are coming at you. I think it's gonna make you more well rounded in terms of the subject that you're looking at. Dig deep, do, take classes. I'm a really big believer in classes and continuing education at any age. So I think that whatever you're interested in, do it for music, go to concerts a lot, go to shows a lot read as much as you possibly can. And that goes for ya know, wine, read as much as you can, anybody really. You know, yeah, I think that those are kind of just the hallmarks. And then I think it's, don't be intimidated, because I know when you're entering a field for the first time, you're going to feel like everybody knows so much more than you. But don't let them because everyone is always learning all the time. Our world is evolving so fast that there is no way for anybody to be able to keep up with everything that's happening. So don't feel like you're so far behind? Because you're not. And it just kind of actually presents more opportunity for you to see what's coming along. And is that something, some little sub genre or sub thing of this area that you want to become an expert in? Could you grab onto that, this new emerging thing, too?
Lexie Smith
Yeah, I think that's fantastic advice. And, you know, I'm curious too, you, you kind of talked about some of the general themes that you you like to write about, but of the day of this recording, by the way, guys, if you're on YouTube, you're gonna see me in a bright neon pink sweater, because it's Valentine's Day when we are recording this. You're not listening to this in February, probably. But my question is, circa this recording, are there certain stories in the next quarter, the next two quarters that you're really interested in? Or, or topics you're looking for resources on? Or just you know, for? If there's someone listening, who knows someone that could be helpful for you, and wanted to give us a moment to just speak to that?
Shana Clarke
Sure. One thing that's been on my mind quite a bit. And I, and they're kind of its two things, but they're also I think, very closely tied together. One of them is the younger generation not getting interested in wine. The whole wine industry is really, I think everyone's trying to figure out how to get people interested in, in, in wine and, and drinking this beverage. I think that the younger generation has so many more options. Now. I think that there's a lot of societal movements that are making people turn away from alcohol. So I think that that's one thing and kind of tied into that is, why is the one industry struggling? I think that there's a lot of big questions that we're all kind of dealing with, I think the A is definitely factoring in to B but I believe that there's other things that are affecting, you know, what's happening in the industry overall. So those are two things that are very big and broad, and I think have a lot of opportunity to be drilled down into. That's what I'm really interested now.
Lexie Smith
I want to subscribe to all of that, because I 100%. See that happening and see that shift. And it's interesting when I first named the show when I first launched my company, THEPRBAR, which very clearly is punned around alcohol beverages and I have a program called wine club. I found you know, even four or five years ago, when I talked about it, there have been a much wider reception to it, or people are a lot more receptive even than they are now. Now I do you often have to call me out like oh, that doesn't mean you have to drink to work with me. And I am, like, you know, shifts being made. And even the winery I used to represent I went back to their tasting room recently they've been sold, and they were debuting a non alcoholic wine, which I was like, oh, okay, which is cool. And I appreciate but it was also interesting. So showing up there for like wine tasting. Anyways, I'm very interested to read that. So I'm just cosigning. Please do write that. Okay. It is interesting. And I've seen it from the consumer lens, as well, but But I digress. Okay. So what I want to do now is transition to a little bit of rapid fire, this is still in the lane of thinking of you, are you right? In a world of robots, I'm very pro, recognizing and acknowledging a journalist for the individual person that they are. So the whole point of rapid fire is that there's there's no right or wrong answer. It's just your preference. So I'm just going to kind of hammer off a bunch of questions, and we'll see what what comes of it. Are you ready?
Shana Clarke
Okay. Yes.
Lexie Smith
So, so here, for example, to you, I'll put the first question. Is there a day of the week that you prefer to be pitched?
Shana Clarke
Tuesdays, Tuesdays,
Lexie Smith
Okay, what about time of day?
Shana Clarke
Anytime? Doesn't really matter. Okay.
Lexie Smith
Are you pro or accepting of follow ups? Yes.
Shana Clarke
I actually think follow ups are a very smart thing to do because things get very lost in the inbox. So yes, big fan of follow ups. Not too much, but give me one right after and I'm okay.
Lexie Smith
Okay. Okay. Um, so we already kind of talked you don't do a ton of products. Let's talk about let's and trees. You know, this is another big debate because we also here in the industry, like keep everything concise, but at the same time, a lot of journalists on the show have had different differing opinions on if you want a brand founder, a publicist to take a moment to tap pleasantries acknowledge your work, like try to establish that human connection or skip it that's fluff gets straight to the point.
Shana Clarke
No, I like I like the human connection. I like knowing that they're looking at what I'm doing. It feels that you know, they're paying attention and they're they're putting in the legwork. I think that that's always that will capture my attention versus a very generic press release.
Lexie Smith
Okay, cool. And I love hearing you still use press releases, which is great. What what other assets in your line of work are important for you to, to have or for you to see in a pitch what's going to help your story?
Shana Clarke
Whew, that's a good question. I like data points. I think that anything that shows trends is wonderful. Because oftentimes my editors, if you can backup that this is a trend with hard numbers. That's fantastic. That's really very helpful. Yeah, I would say absolutely, that knowing that people are going to be available to speak with me if needed. I don't need all the assets up front right away. Like you don't have to bother sending me the dropbox with the images and tech sheets and all that, like we can get to that later on. I don't need that at the moment.
Lexie Smith
Okay. And then DMS, this is also a hot debate, do, are you open to being in your social media DMS?
Shana Clarke
Not a big fan of it. I think that's just because I prefer, I just like working on my laptop a lot. I like my keyboard. And I'm not super crazy about like dealing with stuff on my phone. So I'm not a huge fan of DMS.
Lexie Smith
Okay. Is there a social platform that you utilize for your work? Example, Twitter slash X? You know, some journalists love using that for source request. So I'm hearing a lot more people turning to LinkedIn, some go to Facebook, is there any social platform that you use in your work?
Shana Clarke
Sure, um, I want to give a shout out to this new platform called Grapeloop. It's a really it's a Yeah, it's, it's, I think it's, it's growing. And I think it's been incredibly helpful. It's a platform for the wine community to connect. So I've actually used it several times for source requests when I'm working on articles. I found that and I'm getting responses from it, I think that it's still in the nascent stages, and it's going to keep growing. So I would definitely say if you're in the wine industry, check out Grapeloop. I also really like Instagram, I think that that's kind of my primary social media platform that I use. Every so often, I'll kind of jump on over to Threads, but I haven't really quite gotten my head around it that much. So those are pretty much and I like LinkedIn. And actually LinkedIn, I find really helpful too.
Lexie Smith
I keep waiting to see if Threads is going to die. Or if I'm just procrastinating on something that inevitably I should be on. Because it was like so big right when it first announced and I do feel like Yeah, but I also haven't heard a lot about it since. But you just brought it. So anyways, um, okay, cool. You made it through rapid fire seats. It's not too painful.
Shana Clarke
Oh, that wasn't bad.
Lexie Smith
Um, I actually left a little bit more time than I usually do on this show to transition into our last section. Like I said, I have never had someone in your position on the show. So I'm going to ask a signature question. And then I'm going to give us ample space to dive in. And this is, you know, for my fellow winers out there, this one's This one's for you. So we talked Pitchin’ what can we find you Sippin’ and I have to selfishly say, If you don't answer in wine, that's fine. But then we're going to have to go back to wine. So what are we sippin’? If it is wine? Great. If not, we'll go to wine next.
Shana Clarke
So I will say that I drink very broadly, I'm really curious about what's happening in the wine world. And so I will absolutely taste pretty much anything that you'll put in front of me, I think that I'm you know, I think that they all tell the story. And I mean, this is why I'm in the industry is to just keep learning more. I do love champagne, I will always admit that I have a very big soft spot for champagne. So if someone is pouring me a glass of that, that's probably my big thank you very much. But yeah, but um, yeah, I think, you know, I, it's part of what makes me love this industry is the opportunity to just taste so many different things and to, you know, see what's happening out there and try to understand wine. And just like, it's such a big world of wine out there. You know, I don't want to limit myself to just one thing.
Lexie Smith
I really appreciate what you said earlier in the show and highlighting the connection of culture to wine, because so another fun fact, I studied abroad in Italy for about six months back in college, and I literally got to study food, wine and art. And I felt like I came from a culture in America, where there was a lot of extremes, like either wine is good, or wine is bad. And there wasn't a lot in between. And it wasn't necessarily talked about culturally in the places I was at where I go to Italy, and it's just such a part of life, right? It's such an integrated part of culture. And so I'm curious, knowing that you've traveled the world if there are some wine cultures that you know come to mind as maybe especially unique or some that you really appreciate or just kind of know, let's just have a moment to dig shout them out.
Shana Clarke
Oh, I do agree with you about Italy. I think that Italian wine culture is just absolutely beautiful. I think that them and France and Spain wine is just a huge part of what they've always done. And you have these wineries that go back, you know, 13 generations in certain places, though. It's just to always be a part of how they enjoy life and you know, they'll slow down will actually stop and have a glass of wine. You know, there's certain traditions around it like you can't, you must have food with wine, some places won't let you just have a glass with nothing like we do in America. You know, I think prohibition really kind of screwed us up as a country in terms of wine and wine enjoyment. And we've set up so many barriers that make it really hard for people to get wine and hard to enjoy wine. And then we've also create all these stigmas about drinking. And I think, you know, that's part of the reason why, you know, I, I also really like looking at our domestic wine industries that are growing, you know, Oregon, and California and New York and everywhere else, because they're kind of coming from a place that's really just entrepreneurial and new, and there isn't a huge tradition behind them, you know, so I like kind of seeing how that's been evolving, too.
Lexie Smith
Do you have any favorite wines or wineries that we can take a moment to spotlight?
Shana Clarke
Oh, this is where this is where I get tripped up on the questions. I can never remember off the top of my head. I'm like, like, I get very like tongue tied. When it comes to favorites. I can give you a favorite regions, I think maybe that might be a little bit better, if that's a better way to go about it. I think domestically, I really love what's happening in Oregon. Especially in the Willamette Valley, I think that there's so many beautiful wines. Yeah, that's such a great place that like the ones that are coming out of there are just absolutely stunning. You know, I think again, going back to champagne, so do you love champagne. I think that that's really great. But I, my husband works with South African wines. And so I definitely have to call out that what's happening there is so incredibly exciting. And they don't think enough people know about that. And I'm not saying that, because he's my husband. I'm saying that because I legitimately love the wines that are coming out of there. I went to Uruguay for the first time a couple of weeks ago and was very, very interesting. Yeah, they have a the culture, a lot of it stemmed from Spanish and Italian immigrants. So there's a lot of that kind of culture that's kind of coming into the wines there. So it's a really dynamic scene. It really is. But you know, I've been I love Spain. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm not doing very good at this question.
Lexie Smith
No, you are! I will say one of my bucket list items is to have champagne and champagne, which I feel like you've probably done it's,
Shana Clarke
it's, it's Yeah, yeah. And you gotta go get french fries. That's that's the key is then you go to like the late nights, like, get some french fries with your champagne. And that's, that's the way to go.
Lexie Smith
That's like my heart and soul. Okay, so I do want to give us a moment to talk about the different ways people can work with you. Because I do believe beyond just freelancing for third party outlets. There's other things that you may offer as a writer, am I correct?
Shana Clarke
Yes and I'm really appreciate you bringing that up. Because a lot of what I also do is I'm a content writer. So I work with wineries and wine companies on their content, whether that's website copy, whether that sustainability projects, whether that's working on press releases, sometimes it's fine to be on the other side, but I will help out people writing press releases, really any kind of content that people need on their worked on catalogs, tech sheets, holiday offerings. You know what I find them advertorials for magazines, I and I enjoy doing them. I really do. I think that brands, it's always good to get an outside voice coming in to help with branding. I think that because a lot of companies can really, you know, you're so used to hearing yourselves a lot of the time or like you're working with the same people all the time. And I've heard this from many clients, getting that outside perspective to come in has really been very helpful. So content writing, copywriting content writing. Well, I'm here for it.
Lexie Smith
As we see more and more and more people turning to the world of freelancing. I'm noticing more and more freelancers are offering this side side of their business and I think it's a worth highlighting and you guys understand you guys meeting new listeners, understanding that beyond just pitching them for earned press, there's other opportunities and ways that you can can work with someone like Shana so where can they go to learn about both your work on the journalism side but also your your offerings from the content side?
Shana Clarke
Sure. The first place I'm going to direct everybody is to my website, which is Shana speaks wine.com I have all my contact information there. I have my published works up there. And I'm more than happy to send examples of content work to people I don't want to put that up publicly just for the privacy of the of the brands that I work with. But you know, if you contact me, we can talk about that more. Instagram, I also showcase a lot of my work on Instagram, a little bit on threads still kind of getting around to show on it there. And I always post things that I read. I always post things on LinkedIn as well. So all the social channels but I would say primarily my website is the go to
Lexie Smith
I really wish that there had been a movie about you when I It was at a point in college where I could have realized this should have been my career path. I just like looking into your background and like wow, I'm having a midlife crisis. I want to be Shana when I grew up. Wait, I grew up crap.
Shana Clarke
It's never too late. It's never too late. Look, it's never too late. You could start at any point never too late. Well,
Lexie Smith
this is why I selfishly get to have my own podcast called pitching and sipping and take the last 10 minutes to talk about wine. So thank you for for and for sharing all of your knowledge. You guys if you want me to launch a wine podcast fine, I guess just let me know. Just kidding. But But seriously, thank you for your time today and thank you for coming on the pitch in and sipping podcast.
Shana Clarke
Thank you so much for having me. This is a lot of fun.