Natalie MacLean

Natalie MacLean is an acclaimed Canadian wine writer, accredited sommelier, author, and digital educator whose dynamic, accessible approach to food and wine pairing has established her as one of North America's premier drinks communicators. Raised in Nova Scotia, she earned an MBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University before turning her analytical precision toward her passion for oenology. MacLean vaulted into international prominence with her 2006 debut masterpiece, Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass, which won the World's Best Drink Writer honor at the World Food Media Awards and established her distinctively witty, jargon-free narrative style. She solidified her reputation as a dominant voice in culinary media with her subsequent bestseller, Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World's Best Bargain Wines, and has amassed an extraordinary track record that includes four James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards and the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers' Award. Beyond her print publications, she is a major pioneer in digital wine education, running a massive online portal that features Canada's most popular interactive wine pairing mobile apps and premium virtual tasting courses. She also hosts the highly successful weekly podcast, Unreserved Wine Talk, which The New York Times selected as one of the world's top drinks audio series. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, where she serves as a regular resident expert on national television networks like CTV and Global News, she recently captured intense global media attention and critical acclaim for her bestselling memoir, Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Wimpy Wineland, a deeply vulnerable, fact-checked exposé unmasking systemic sexism, cyberbullying, and institutional gatekeeping within the modern wine industry that she actively supports through national human rights and diversity lectures.