Lettie Teague

The Path

As the paper’s wine columnist, Lettie Teague wrote to keep wine in the reader’s hands, not at a remove. The column’s point was advice, not posture: a steady guide through a category that can drift into jargon or snobbery. Wine was treated as part of ordinary eating and choosing, and Teague said so plainly: “It is half of our name and we really make a point to have it in every possible place, not just in bottles recommended or profiles of winemakers or stories but also absolutely every dish that it's appropriate to.” That approach put wine where the reader actually encounters it—on the page, in recommendations, in profiles, in stories, and wherever food and drink meet.

The Work Today

Wine journalism remains the frame for Lettie Teague’s career, and the column is still the clearest marker of what she made of the form. The value is in the tone as much as the subject: clear-eyed, practical, and reader-first. Teague described the range without softening it: “Most of the time the wines were pretty good, very occasionally they were very good but often, they weren’t good at all.” That kind of accounting matters in trade writing. It leaves room for the good bottles while acknowledging the work of sorting through the average and the poor so the reader does not have to. The result is discernment used as service.

In Their Words “Most of the time the wines were pretty good, very occasionally they were very good but often, they weren’t good at all.” “Readers wanted to know what they SHOULD buy - not what they should avoid.”