Wine writer Natalie MacLean, Ottawa, Canada

CONSUMED with Jaime Lewis

When my husband and I quit our jobs to work in vineyards around the world in 2008, we spent six months in Blenheim, New Zealand. After work each day, I’d go to the Blenheim public library to siphon free wifi, but I’d just as often wind up in the stacks picking out books to read. One of those books was Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass by author Natalie MacLean. I loved her humor, her description of how it feels to fall in love with wine, and her honesty about the appeal of a good buzz. Her writing definitely helped inspire me to be a wine writer. Fast forward fourteen years, and guess what? Natalie MacLean reached out to me to be on her podcast, Unreserved Wine Talk, which the New York Times named one of the seven best drinks podcasts to listen to in 2020. We also flipped the script so I could interview her here for CONSUMED. Natalie has a very, very long resume, including four James Beard Awards and the MF.K. Fisher Award for Excellence in Culinary Writing from Les Dames d’Escoffier International. Her books have been selected as Amazon’s Best Books of the Year, and she is the wine expert on several Canadian TV and news shows. Did I not mention Natalie is Canadian? Yes. I know this podcast deals in Californians only, but I can include her because she once worked for a company in Silicon Valley. When not working on her next book, Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Depression, and Drinking Too Much, Natalie shares online wine pairing courses and wine reviews at NatalieMaclean.com.

My interview on Natalie's podcast: "Santa Maria BBQ & Wines + Can You Earn a Living as a Wine Writer?"

Website: nataliemaclean.com

Instagram: @nataliemaclean