Welcome to Maker’s Table.

I’m curious about nature, culture, food, wine, and place, and those topics permeate my work. But I’m equally curious about writing itself.

Maker’s Table is a commingling of these interests. It features essays, profiles, and criticism, largely but not exclusively about wine and food, illustrated with my own artwork and photography. It also includes reflections and insights about the creative process, the art and craft of visual and narrative storytelling.

Maker’s Table launched in February 2008, originally focused on wine criticism and producer profiles. The site grew rapidly to become a respected voice in independent wine journalism, with the feature writing collecting awards and accolades. In 2025 I migrated to Substack, and today, the archives contain eighteen years’ worth of feature writing on wine, regions, and producers along with reflective essays on the nature of wine, writing, and wine writing.

I have formal training in the arts (literary and visual) and the biological sciences, which provides a foundation for evaluating contemporary topics in wine and food. I travel often to conduct research in wine regions and understand how producers are grappling with cultural, environmental, and economic pressures.

My philosophy inclines me toward sustainable, organic, artisanal, and small-batch wine and food production. I admire producers who are mindful about how their work fits into the continuum of historical and regional foodways, but I’m not anti-modern; food is always evolving—literally always refreshed—so I value production that embodies tradition while expressing something wholly new. Within this editorial framework, I aim to deliver forthright, true storytelling about people, place, gastronomy, and the improbable beauty of food. I post weekly, at minimum.

I serve as Chair of the international Circle of Wine Writers, supporting, and learning from, a diverse global membership of professional wine and spirits communicators. I also contribute freelance writing to other outlets, including World of Fine Wine, Art of Eating, Trink, Meininger’s Wine Business International, Tasting Panel, Serious Eats, and many other trade and lifestyle publications. And I frequently lecture and speak about wine and wine communications.

My current research interests include considerations of the lexicons and narrative motifs we use to describe wine, how those words shape our view of wine and vice versa. I also pursue questions of wine through the lenses of traditionalism, modernism, and postmodernism, and how and the current re-thinking of wine’s aesthetics gestures toward metamodernism.

Learn more about me at megmaker.com.

Enjoy,
Meg Maker