I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business.

I'm Levy Dalton.

I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Oh, Karen McNeil of the Wine Bible, recently introduced the second edition, revised and updated.

Hello, how are you?

I'm great, Levy, how are you?

Nice to have you on the show.

Pleasure.

So where did you grow up?

I grew up.

I was born in Boston and then spent some years on the West Coast in Nevada and ultimately moved to New York as a young woman when I was 19.

And what was an impetus for that?

I suppose I had this idea as many writers do that back then anyway you really

needed to be in New York if you wanted to sort of forge your way as a writer.

I'm quite sure I had no idea how difficult it was it

was going to be but nonetheless I arrived on Thanksgiving day in 1976 with $6 and the hope of being a writer.

You knew at that point already that writing was the deal.

Yeah, I mean I didn't know if I could ever survive and make a career of it, but I really felt that writing had in a sense chosen me. I was compelled to write. So even though I was a poor kid and worked many jobs, you know, I would stay up late at night writing pieces and trying to get them published from the time I was 15.

And where do you think that was coming from?

Were there particular models you had in your mind?

No, my family was not well educated. No, when I'm the first person to graduate from high school

never mind college and there were no books in our house none well I guess there was

one cookbook but it but certainly a love of literature was not what my family was about.

...