Exclusive Q&A with Madeline Puckette from Wine Folly

“I would love to answer a few questions but when it comes to ‘best’ and ‘favorite’ I cannot not answer those questions. It’s like asking me what my favorite donut or cookie is… I love them all, for different reasons, occasions and constantly changing tastes!”

To say I was excited when Madeline Puckette of winefolly.com got back to me with answers to my Q&A questions was an understatement! I reached out to Madeline via twitter however I honestly thought it would never go anywhere, simply for the fact that she’s one of those globally known wine personalities who I doubted would have time to answer questions for a small time blog like Travelling Corkscrew.

So firstly, a HUGE big thank-you to Madeline for being so down to earth and giving me and you guys an insight into the lady behind Wine Folly. In case you’re not familiar with this fabulous website for wine lovers or about Madeline, here’s a quick intro followed by the Q&A. Grab a glass of vino and sit back and enjoy folks.

What is Wine Folly?

WineFolly.com is you’re one stop shop for everything and anything to do with learning about wine. The style of writing is equally as entertaining as it is informative. I know for a fact that everyone from those just learning about wine to professionals in the industry regularly read the site. The writing encourages and inspires new wine drinkers to enter further and further into the wonderful world of wine.

What I think really captured my attention was the fantastic infographics (which you have no doubt seen throughout my blog), who doesn’t love a good infographic right?

Who is Madeline Puckette?

I have to quote Madeline here, “I’m a certified Sommelier which basically means I have a license to drink wine” – amen to that wine sister! Madeline is the co-founder of Wine Folly and is the content producer for the site, including being the brains behind the infographics (click the examples to the right).

You can read more about Madeline and her achievements here.

Q&A with Madeline Puckette

Where do you draw your inspiration for the Wine Folly wine content from?
Lots of reading and talking to people. I follow about 100 other wine blogs and wine news as well as other sources of information: hacker news, wired uk, fastcompany, the moz blog, quora, several design blogs and resources like dribbble and behance.net. We (Justin and I) also do a fair amount of number crunching for organic search to figure out what topics people care about. I also love to talk to wine newbies. Last night I met a guy from east Africa who didn’t grow up with wine in any fashion. His perception of wine and beer involved both fascination and trepidation over the jargon. He showed me that he clearly pays attention to the taste and flavor of things, but he was at a loss for words to describe things like tannin and body. I learn a lot more about how to communicate to beginner wine enthusiasts by spending time with him.

What’s your favourite wine accessory and why?
While I have many wine accessories that I love and I am very particular, the only one I really need is a good waiter’s friend. I have several that are very fancy, but my most affordable (and always reliable) is the pulltaps double-hinged waiter’s friend. It’s also nice to drink out of descent glassware, it even makes water taste fancy.

What’s your biggest tip when it comes to wine?
Learn how to taste wine and identify your ‘taste preference.’ To do this you gotta open up and try a lot of different things in order to discover wines that you might not think that you would like based on principle. A great example for this when I first started actively tasting wines and realized (by accident) that I actually loved Chardonnay. I’d never tried it because the people around me thought it was passé, but it’s outstanding!

I see you have visited Australia before, what has been the most memorable Australian wine you’ve ever tried and why?
Nearly every wine I tried in Australia was memorable. The whole reason I went to Australia in the first place was because I liked the wine!

Any plans to visit Western Australia in the future?
I’ve driven around Western Australia on google maps before to try to get a better understanding of the region. It really looks like a lovely area and I’d love to go there! Australian wines get a bad reputation in the US, and there’s really very little reason for this because so much of the wine is fantastic. But what really impressed me about the country is how much sustainability is integrated into people’s lives. No one hangs their laundry out in the US, but every where I went in Australia, people were taking advantage of the ample sun to dry their clothes. People were proud of their Australian olive oil, Aussie vegetables (which are huge btw) and even the soap in the bathroom was made in Australia. I hope the US takes this same ideal to heart.

I hope you all enjoyed reading a little bit more about the wine lover behind Wine Folly. I would definitely encourage you all to check out the Wine Folly website and to connect with the team on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or on Pinterest.

All images sourced from winefolly.com