Episode 97: Hungry for Wine With Cathy Huyghe
Forbes writer and author of the book Hungry for Wine: Seeing the world through the lens of a wine glass, Cathy Huyghe, joins the ladies of Wine Two Five this week! We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation about her book, new Enolytics wine consumer data project, the Atlanta food and wine scene, and wine life in general. There’s also a little taste of #WineOops in the podcast glass to pair with some giggles. Please sit back, click play, open a bottle, and dig into some wine edu-tainment and insight.
In our glasses:
Steph: made a pink drink in celebration of Valentine’s Day… something with Sloe Gin… The Moulin Rouge cocktail.
- 1/2 oz sloe gin + 3/4 oz sweet vermouth + 1 dash bitters
- Stir together with cracked ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
- Serves 1. Credit to DrinksMixer.com
Val: was drinking the 2007 Fontalloro from Felsina Beradenga, which is 100% Sangiovese.
This Week’s Guest: Cathy Huyghe
Cathy Huyghe is a dynamic media professional with a special interest in wine and the spirit of hospitality. She is also an effective, engaging public speaker on subjects ranging from wine and gastronomy to digital media and entrepreneurship.
Cathy currently writes for Forbes.com about the business and politics of the wine industry. She is the author of Hungry for Wine: Seeing the World through the Lens of a Wine Glass, and she was a finalist for the IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year award in 2016 given in Verona. She is also the co-founder of Enolytics, a data analysis tech startup for the wine industry.
Cathy’s writing has appeared in print and online for both general-interest and wine industry publications including the Harvard Business Review network, The Atlantic, Decanter, Food52.com (where she was the “Wine, Unfussed” columnist), DailyBeast, The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Wine Enthusiast, GlobalPost, Grist.org, and Daily Candy. She has also been featured on the BBC, WNYC, WGBH, and Nevada Public Radio.
Cathy is the founder of 365daysofwine.com and Red White Boston, a digital media company for the wine industry. Red White Boston produced daily content, monthly tasting events, and a location-based iPhone app of video wine recommendations from their network of 30+ local partner stores. While in Boston, she also managed the wine cellar at WGBH public broadcasting station and managed wine events for donors and the public.
Cathy’s restaurant experience started when she knocked on the kitchen door at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She also has worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris (at Natachef bistro and at his two-star restaurant, Apicius) and for Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Las Vegas. She studied at La Varenne École de Cuisine in Burgundy, France; she completed the Wine Studies program at Boston University; and she received Advanced Certification from WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust).
Cathy received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard in 2004 and a second master’s degree in Journalism in 2010, also from Harvard. Before that, she received a master’s degree in comparative literature from the City University of New York in 1998 and a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1995. She is also a trained mediator, and worked for two years at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School on a project in the Middle East.
In April 2008 she founded the Harvard Alumni in Wine and Food special interest group, which provides educational and networking services to the Harvard alumni and current students. She currently serves as the President of the Harvard Club of Georgia.
Her other non-profit involvement includes the Women’s Solidarity Society at the new National Center for Civil & Human Rights (Atlanta), grant reviewer for the Food Well Alliance (an Atlanta-based organization that supports the local network of 350 urban farms and community gardens), Coach at GOTR (Girls on the Run) in Atlanta, Board Member at the Greening Youth Foundation (Atlanta), Board Member at The Food Project (Boston), and Mediator at the Neighborhood Justice Center (Las Vegas).
She lives in Atlanta with her husband, their twin boys, and their Bernese Mountain dog, Coco.
During our interview we asked her to tell our listeners what they can expect from the book, Hungry for Wine: Seeing the World through the Lens of a Wine Glass. If you’ve read the book you’ll know it’s like diving into a written case of wine – 12 wines and the stories behind them, how they made it to your table. (If you haven’t read the book, please get thee to our store ASAPly and scoop it up! Wines from South Africa, Turkey – where it’s forbidden to market wine, and even Lebanon and Syria where wars were raging and wine was still being made. There are also stories from right here in the US. She gives tasting and producer notes for each wine, and it’s quite the easy read. We like that the paragraphs aren’t long and overly detailed. If you love the mesh of wine and culture – and who doesn’t love a good story?? – you’ll enjoy this book. As a preview, be on the lookout for future editions, including one based on the wines of Italy!
She also gave us the scoop on Enolytics, which taps into the talent of a team of data scientists to bridge what they do with the wine. Her team consists of three specific scientists from the healthcare industry who can look at the information from their data partners with fresh eyes. This information allows the consumer-based data is purchased from various wine platforms to better define consumer sentiment and behavior. In turn, industry clients are able to hone in on the data they need to innovate, create and give consumers, literally, what they are asking for. The data is not free and is purchased, and Enolytics works with clients to figure out who the best data partners are for them.
The content on Enolytics 101 posts are published each Friday. For more information, check out: http://www.enolytics.com/enolytics101/. This project, of course, has her laser focus, and she believes it helps her to stretch her communications muscles.
Connect with Cathy on Facebook (as huyghecathy), Twitter, and Instagram as cathyhuyghe.
For the complete interview, and to hear some good juju about the Atlanta food and wine scene, as well as Cathy’s embarrassing wine story (#WineOops), click here:
To get your mitts on her book, well, here you go!
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