IWSC Wine Communicator 2020 shortlist: Nina Caplan

Wine Communicator 2020 - sponsored by Vinitaly - recognises someone whose communication skills have made an exceptional contribution towards promoting and increasing public awareness in wine. Here is another chance to see the profiles of four brilliant communicators who have been shortlisted for one of the IWSC's top awards. The winner will be announced at the 2020 IWSC Awards at 6pm GMT on Wednesday 18 November, broadcast on YouTube.

Nina Caplan is an award-winning author and wine, travel and arts journalist, as well as a speaker, editor, consultant and editor. Alongside her two long-standing columns in The New Statesman and Times Luxx, Caplan writes features for publications on three different continents, including Club Oenologique, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Time Out Montreal, and Gourmet Traveller Wine, Club Oenologique and many others.

Her first book The Wandering Vine: Wine, The Romans and Me, which was published in 2018 and discusses Ancient Rome’s influence on modern wine, went on to win both Book of the Year at the Louis Roederer International Wine Writing Awards, and Fortnum & Mason Debut Drink Book of the Year. Following its publication, Caplan has given talks at literary festivals across the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia, alongside organising a series of popular wine evenings and dinners. She also works as a translator and consultant, and in January 2019 was the Keynote Speaker at the sold-out Pinot Noir Celebrations in Australia’s Mornington Peninsula.

“In more than 15 years of writing about wine, I have made it my mission to bring the pleasures of this magical drink to a hitherto unengaged audience: the people who ‘don’t know much but know what they like’, who think talking about wine is boring and caring what you drink is only for snobs,” Caplan says.

“My central message is that wine incorporates everything, from gastronomy to history, geography, religion, politics and economics, and that (to misquote Samuel Johnson) the man who is uninterested in wine is uninterested in life."

"The pandemic has been and continues to be a strange time. I've spent a lot of it writing wistfully about places I've been or wish I could be, but I think it's been valuable to my work as a communicator to have this opportunity to see wine from the other side - the consumer's side, where visits to vineyards, direct contact with winemakers and the opportunity to taste a vast range of wines are rare to nonexistent."

“I would see this award as indicating that my attempts to broaden wine’s reach are having the desired effect. Whether the communication in question is written, spoken or virtual, the IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year has a broader platform, and as someone who fervently believes that wine’s appeal is universal, broader can only be better.”

This year’s winner will be following in the footsteps of the 2019 title holder, Wine Folly's Madeline Puckette.