Substack in the Wine Writer’s Quiver
Wine writer Simon J. Woolf shares his experience and advice for making the leap to Substack
It’s been five months since I migrated Maker’s Table to Substack from WordPress. I made the move largely because I was sick of the infrastructure demands and expense of self hosting. I was also annoyed that the vast majority of my traffic arrived from a search engine, saw one page, and bounced. I was eager to take advantage of Substack’s publishing tools and monetization options and the community of readers baked into the platform.
My migration took about a week, and the hardest part, as usual, was editorial, viz., figuring out what to keep and what to cut. In the end I ported about 170 feature stories (dating back to 2008) and jettisoned outdated material, including about 1,200 straight-up wine reviews. My old mailing list had gone stale, so I also left that behind, which meant starting to build readership from scratch. But by the one-month mark I was up to 100 subscribers, and now, thanks partly to having been recommended by the Wall Street Journal (cheers, Lettie!), it’s risen over 300, with a satisfying number of paid subscribers (cheers, everyone!). This week I was even, briefly, “rising” in Food & Drink.
My experience so far has been positive. A weekly posting schedule serves as a swift kick in my pants, and I’ve enjoyed discovering other writers in the community, not only fellow wine commentators but also nonfiction writers and essayists, artists and illustrators. The publishing interface is simple, the stats are good enough, and the monetary payouts have been seamless.
I have had a few destabilizing realizations. It’s certainly possible to use Substack like WordPress, managing it like a magazine. It’s even possible to create multi-department, multi-author publications (Narratively does this well). But the inherent feature of periodic emailing also lets authors treat it as, simply, a newsletter. That makes it feel more like a conversation, with writers sharing what’s top of mind, getting feedback, and building story over time. I’m still wrapping my head around that paradigm shift and what it means for my habit of publishing more or less atomic pieces. And while I continue to contribute freelance writing elsewhere, Substack is now my main focus, so I’ll have to wrap my head around it eventually.
Curious about other wine writers’ experiences here, I’ve been reaching out to long-time colleagues to get their insights.
, of The Morning Claret, is one of the most successful among them, having acquired over 4,200 subscribers in just under two years. Simon, a British ex-pat in Amsterdam, is an author, freelance writer, and global expert on organic, biodynamic, natural, and skin-contact wines. He’s published two books: Amber Revolution: How the World Learned to Love Orange Wine (2018) and Foot Trodden: Portugal and the Wines that Time Forgot (2021), co-authored with Ryan Opaz.I love Simon’s writing, his voice and perspective, the way he thinks about wine and culture. He indulged my questions with characteristically thoughtful replies, much of which resonated with my own experiences, but with fresh advice I wish I’d had before I started. So, I’m sharing all of it here in case it helps other wine writers, or any writers, make the leap. The Q. & A. has been lightly edited.
Did you switch to Substack from another platform? If so, do you still maintain that, or did you migrate completely?
I migrated from my old WordPress blog, themorningclaret.com, which goes back to 2011. It was a bit of a “do or die” moment. The site was my starting point in wine writing, but as I got more paid commissions it rapidly became the poor relation. My reader numbers started declining and so did my enthusiasm to post. In 2023 I published just two articles on T.M.C. I knew something had to change and that filthy lucre was probably the only way to enact that change.
Substack felt like the perfect solution: a platform that normalizes the idea that you pay for independent writing. The migration was seamless, allowing me to port my entire body of work across. I kept the same URL, so my existing readers (the few that remained) wouldn’t even notice anything had changed.
I had a dormant subscriber list, collected over many years. I imported that into Substack and it really helped: I launched in January 2024 with 1,400 free subscribers so it looked popular right from the get-go—even if half were probably dead contacts. Still, I clocked 100 paying subscribers in the first month, which was a huge surprise. I clearly had a loyal audience hungry for more.
Is Substack your principal writing platform now, or do you hope it to become so?
It’s become my main platform and that’s exactly what I wanted. It’s exhausting pitching to publications with little interest in the niche topics I care about. The fees range from insulting to poor, barely covering research costs, if at all. I used to wonder why I was giving my best content away, especially as it rarely generated me any engagement.
In 2025, Substack has become the biggest slice of my income. I’m still short for the first Jaguar (Subscribe now!), but it is real money and it provides the motivation to write that was almost completely gone. I couldn’t be more thankful to my subscribers for this.
How does Substack fit into the ecosystem of your other writing and publishing activities?
I still write for a few other publications, but only the three or four that bring some kind of satisfaction. Noble Rot allows me to republish on my site after a respectful delay, so that’s a bit of extra value for my subscribers. I’ve recently agreed a cross-publishing deal with TRINK magazine, and I hope that’s going to work well for both of us.
What are the best aspects of Substack for you as writer-publisher?
The freedom to publish what I want, when I want. It’s incredibly frustrating when a publication stalls on a topical piece, or the editor tones down a hard-hitting article.
The weekly rhythm of publishing and editing has tightened and honed my craft. Substack’s analytics also allow me to monitor engagement on each article. This constant reflection on what works and what doesn’t is so valuable. I’m learning from my audience in real time.
What are the most challenging aspects?
The downside is that I can’t (yet) afford my own editor. The decision to publish weekly means I’m editing myself under considerable time pressure. I firmly believe in editing: my own writing is always better if I leave it for 24 hours and then do another pass.
Substack risks becoming all-consuming. I set myself the target of one 1,000- to 2,000-word article a week, so that’s two to three days of each week gone. It’s a big chunk of time, and I wonder how it’s going to feel when I get into my next book.
Any advice to a fellow wine writer who’s considering starting a Substack?
Wine Substack is becoming progressively more crowded. It can feel like a long, hard road for someone just launching their newsletter. The journey from zero to one hundred subscribers is brutal. It’s even worse when you start trying to convert them to paid. I lose one paid subscriber for every two that I gain. It’s slow progress, but you just have to keep showing up in people’s feeds.
Focus on developing your own unique voice and specialize as much as possible. Unless you’re already an influencer or a TV personality, no one will read your generalist wine blog. And I’m sorry, but no one is interested in your tasting notes. It’s much better to find a country, a style, or an angle that deserves more attention.
I can’t emphasize enough the need to improve your writing. Even if you’re a good writer within the wine world, you’re still a terrible writer when it comes to the greater literary ecosystem. Read and analyze the work of high-level journalists, and work with editors as much as you can and note how they tighten and prune. Stay humble.
Substack is awash with poorly researched, unedited drivel. If you want to succeed, you must rise above this sea of sub-par content. There are no shortcuts. Research obsessively, write passionately, edit like a true pedant, and don’t give up.
Top image ©2025 Meg Maker. Some portions of this article also appeared in The Circular.