A graduate in English literature and performing arts, Lisa Perrotti-Brown – who grew up in rural Maine, USA – took a job as manager of a wine bar while living in London and trying to make it as a playwright. Moving to Tokyo with her husband in 2002, she worked as a buyer for a Japanese importer and as a wine educator at Tokyo's Academie du Vin (an offshoot of Steven Spurrier’s Parisian wine school). She began writing a column for eRobertParker.com in 2008, and became an MW in the same year. In 2013, she became the editor-in-chief for Robert Parker Wine Advocate and RobertParker.com. Her first book, Taste Like a Wine Critic: A Guide to Understanding Wine Quality, was published in 2015. In 2021 she left Robert Parker Wine Advocate to become co-founder of The Wine Independent. As well as being the Editor-in-Chief of The Wine Independent, she covers the regions of California and Bordeaux.

What would you consider is the most important decision in your wine career?

To move from London to Japan in 2002. I had been living in London for 12 years. I had a great career working for Paragon Vintners (a distribution company jointly owned by Veuve Clicquot and Baron Philippe de Rothschild). I had just started doing my Master of Wine. Then my husband, who was working at Nomura Bank in London, was offered an opportunity in Tokyo. It was his dream. We had to go - it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. At the time, I thought it would be the death of my wine career. It was a huge leap of faith, but it turned out to be the best decision I'd ever made. After about a month of being a bored ex-pat wife, I got a part-time job teaching at the Académie du Vin wine school in Tokyo. I met Steven Spurrier. Then I got a full-time job working as a wine buyer for a fine wine importer. Then I met Robert Parker. When we moved to Singapore in 2008, I began working for the Wine Advocate, reviewing the wines of Australia and New Zealand and writing about the Asian wine scene.

But before this big leap, had your career been fairly conventional do you think?

Well, yes and no, I started off, just on a fluke, working in a wine bar. I came to London because I'd been there for a year studying English literature and performing arts. I just fell in love with London, so as soon as I graduated from college in the US, I got on a plane (literally the same day) and went straight back to London to become a playwright. But playwriting doesn't really pay a lot of money, especially in the early days. And so a friend of mine was managing a wine bar in Pimlico and he needed bar staff. All I knew was that there were three colours of wine. White and pink you put in the fridge and red you don’t. 

And then about six months in, my friend left to manage another wine bar so there was a position open. I put all my acting skills to the test and they fell for my bluff. That was the springboard. Then after being there for a few years I just wrote to every single wine merchant in London asking for a job. And Corney & Barrow eventually offered me an on-trade sales position open. So, from then on, it was more conventional. And then taking that leap of faith, going to Tokyo and eventually coming back to my original passion, which is writing. I wouldn't say it's altogether conventional, but certain stages of it were. 

Do you think of yourself as a ‘disruptor’ at all? 

I don't. I don't try to. I'm very non-confrontational. I don't want to disrupt anything, I guess because it draws attention and I just want to duck and cover. Sometimes it just works out that way, that you can't help but be a disruptor because you feel like you have to do the right thing. Or you have to stand up and say something and that’s when it's more about having courage, I think, than being a disruptor. And there have been several times in my life when I’ve done that and felt the need to do that. [can you give an example?]

Having gone your own way with The Wine Independent, do you think of yourself as being alive to the changing needs of today?

Wine moves more slowly than other industries, but it does move and it does change. And consumers have growing needs and changing expectations, so you need to adapt. You can't do that unless you're listening to what consumers are saying and watching what they're doing. 

Social media is great because it’s a window into these consumer worlds. I’m constantly on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook. I look for little groups of collectors and I listen in on what they're talking about and try to meet those needs. That was a big part of how we developed The Wine Independent. For example, with the filters that we have. We have more filters than any other wine website out there, including filters for alcohol levels – because we understand that that’s what people want, even though most of the wine trade thinks it’s unnecessary. 

There are so many voices out there talking about wine. Let's just put the consumer in the driving seat, let them dial in their own style of wine and then we can tell them – this is a good example of that style. 

Do you feel there's still a very strong audience who want to read what an expert has to say?

It has to do with how you access information. At any given time, there are a quarter of a million wine labels available. You need a search engine with robust filters to be able to navigate vast choice quickly, easily and efficiently. You don't need to reinvent the wheel but you do need to make it better. So that if somebody wants to plug in, 2021 Bordeaux and pull up all of those tasting notes into a search bar, they know it works. 

That is what we developed for Robert Parker [full name Robert Parker Wine Advocate?]. We have adapted it so that it works much more to the consumer's advantage, so that they don't have to be as reliant on scores. They can they can dial in their preferences first. 

We love video as well. I like doing podcasts. I rarely find myself listening to them, although I know there's a huge audience out there. It's great if you want to hear an interview with somebody or you want to learn something about a topic, I think that's when podcasts are fabulous. [So you generally like videos but you don’t think they are appropriate for your audience?]

But videos and podcasts don’t really work for us. We prefer straightforward storytelling. The written story is still the most effective for the kind of thing that we want to do U1 

How important is it to include ‘liefestyle’ elements in a wine article? U2 

It's not what we do necessarily. We really want to be storytellers, both visual and with words. I need a story. I need something to leap out and say to me, ‘This is the story that hasn't been told’. 

For example, I was writing a story about Jayson Woodbridge from Hundred Acre [in Napa] and I remember him saying, apropos of nothing, that he's a direct descendant of Jacques Cartier, who was a cartographer and explorer in North America. So that was my story: Jayson wanting to see himself as a descendant of a mapmaker. 

Or the article I did on Gêrard Perse [owner of Château Pavie in St Emilion]. What can I write about, Pavie that hasn't been written before? But how about all of the pieces of neighbouring vineyards he bought, and added in or traded for lesser pieces, and created this sum that is greater than the parts. And I thought that's an interesting angle. And that was my story. 

So that's our unique style. The stories aren't very long. We try to keep them around 1000 words and they're with images and quotes so the article doesn't feel like a long, laborious sea of words. 

Other writers do the lifestyle thing very well, or travel, or wine and food matching. But that's not us. You have to be true to who you are and what your voice is, and know that consumers are looking for something like that too. 

What would you say are you getting in terms of knowledge levels from your subscribers? Are you getting collectors, investors, keen amateurs, a mixture of all of them? 

Mostly collectors and investors. But we are bringing in a lot more people who just like the stories too. And I like that it's not just for the hardcore nerds. And I try to write that way as well, although there are some really pithy facts in there and a few technical details in every article. It has to have a story that evokes emotions, and that is fun to read. When we take on writers that's also something that I insist on. even if you're not a complete dork, that you get something out of it. And so that's been interesting to me. When it was Halloween, I did two stories on haunted wineries and we got so much engagement from outside, so many new people coming in.

What are your views on the current crowd of wine influencers?

I think influencer has become such a dirty word. I probably follow people who are influencers and I just don't even think of them as influencers. I just think of them as communicating about wine. But I do try to follow a lot of people and I wake up in the morning and I go on to social media and I see what everybody's saying, and I get a kick out of it. There's no one out there that makes me angry, that annoys me, that I think is invalid. We need more people talking about wine. Why not? U1 

If you’re just starting out, do you think you should be a generalist or a specialist?

You need to have a general education before you can specialise. You might want to specialise in natural wine but you need to know everything before you come to that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a natural wine specialist, but you should be a generalist first.

What’s your view on the current wine landscape and its direction?

I'm a bad person to ask because I'm an eternal optimist. I see the opportunity in everything. I think we're in a very good place. I know that there's doom and gloom about younger people who don't like wine. But I didn't even drink wine until I was 21 or 22. I didn't know anything about it. I think that that's natural for young people. Wine is usually something that you come to later. It's an unusual alcoholic beverage. It takes a little bit of concentration to be able to appreciate and enjoy it. 

I talked to my 18-year-old daughter about why she doesn’t like wine. It's sour. It's bitter. Conversely, she loves craft root beer, which is sweet and fizzy. Of course young people aren't going to like wine. But they'll find it, and I have no doubt that they will, because they're so switched on about the planet, and the environment. They're incredible foodies. I didn't even know craft root beer is a thing – that’s one clue, and there are many more – in the lifestyles of young people that shows they're going to find wine. We have a very positive future. 

But there are aspects of the wine industry that make it look a little bit bleak. Every time I go to Sauternes now I'm so sad that more consumers don't love these wines because they're probably the best bargains on the planet. When you consider the quality that you're getting for the money, the ageability of these wines, just the deliciousness of them. But it’s a style that a lot of people are not looking at. Who knows, maybe the younger generation who are drinking craft root beers will come on to Sauternes. Actually, I did once give my daughter a glass of Château d’Yquem and she said ‘Now that I like’ So there you go.