Publisher and Editor-in-Chief MERIDITH MAY

Meridith May is the owner of two national U.S. wine and spirits trade publications: The SOMM Journal and THE TASTING PANEL Magazine. She is responsible for the publications’ branding and content. She has successfully increased each national magazine’s readership to reach over 65,000 bi-monthly for SOMM Journal and over 70,000 hospitality industry professionals bi-monthly for The Tasting Panel.

Meridith’s career in the media spans over 40 years. She began as VP Marketing for Los Angeles-based KIIS FM/KRLA radio in the 1980s working with such notable on-air personalities as Charlie Tuna, The Real Don Steele and Rick Dees.
Segueing into food and wine, she was the restaurant columnist for the Santa Barbara News Press from 1998-2001 and then took the role as Senior Editor at Patterson’s Beverage Journal where she ran the magazine until 2007, when she purchased the name, and began The Tasting Panel, which has evolved as the nation’s leading national wine and spirits industry magazine.
In 2013, she purchased the Sommelier Journal, an underground “cult” publication for high-end somms and with her same business model as The Tasting Panel, transformed it as The Somm Journal, the leading wine education print publication for the trade.