Sommelier Natalie MacLean shares her passion and knowledge about wine through colorful stories and insider information about the evocative places and charismatic characters in the wine industry. After three years of sipping, spitting, and slogging her way through bushy vine leaves and cellar cobwebs, Natalie has collected a host of captivating stories. She tastes pinot noir in the ancient vineyards of Burgundy, picks grapes in the hot California sun, and discovers how champagne differs from still wine both in method and mystique. She works retail at a high-tech shop in New York City, looks at the influence of super-critic Robert Parker, Jr., whose opinion can make or break a wine, and compares collecting notes with novelist and wine enthusiast Jay McInerney. Whether disgorging champagne bottles (and nearly taking out the cellar master’s eye) or dripping red wine across the table linens at a five-star restaurant, Natalie delivers a tour both engaging and informative, from grape to glass to gullet.

Natalie Maclean is an accredited sommelier and publishes her own e-newsletter Nat Decants. She has won numerous awards, among them four James Beard Journalism Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, four IACP Bert Greene Awards, four Association of Food Journalists Awards, and four North America Travel Journalist Association Awards, and she was named the World’s Best Drink Writer. Her work has appeared in Best Food Writing (2004), and she has written for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Wine Enthusiast, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A Rhodes Scholarship finalist and Scottish highland dancer, Natalie lives with her husband and son outside of Ottawa.