Ep 386: Natalie MacLean -- Author, Wine Reviewer & Podcaster

Published: Aug. 9, 2021, 7:37 p.m.

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Natalie MacLean is an accredited sommelier who operates one of the largest wine sites on the web at www.nataliemaclean.com.

Natalie\'s first book\\xa0Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass\\xa0and her second book\\xa0Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World\'s Best Bargain Wines\\xa0were each selected as an Amazon \\u201cBest Book of the Year.\\u201d She is the wine expert on CTV\'s\\xa0The Social, Canada\'s largest daytime television show, CTV News, and Global Television\'s Morning Show.

She was named the World\'s Best Drinks Writer at the World Food Media Awards, and has won four James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. Natalie is an author, online wine course instructor, and wine reviewer. She is a member of the National Capital Sommelier Guild, the Wine Writers Circle, and several French wine societies with complicated and impressive names.

Natalie holds an MBA and is a fellow podcast host, with her excellent podcast \\u201cUnreserved Wine Talk\\u201d (on which I have also been a guest - Ep 50).

Being two podcasters, we like to talk!! This is more of a conversation than an interview and we had a great time chatting about a variety of subjects. Here are the show notes:

  • Natalie talks about her journey into the wine world from a live in tech and an MBA to becoming a wine reviewer and writer. She and I discuss the professional challenges that she faced in 2012 and how she didn\\u2019t give up and used her positivity and strength to continue being a powerful voice in wine.

  • We chat about the Canadian wine industry

  • Then we get to the main event \\u2013 bantering about the current trends in the wine industry and what we think about them. Here are the main topics we take on:

    • The natural wine movement/clean wine/raw wine
    • Celebrity wine
    • Alcohol free or low alcohol wine
    • Wine critics and \\u201cinfluencers\\u201d
    • Climate change and what it will do to wine
    • Wine v. white claw or spirits, which follows nicely into a conversation about canned and boxed wines and alternative packaging, including the environmental impact of shipping in the wine industry and our hopes for change
    • Orange wines, blue wines

A very fun conversation about wine and life. Please check out Natalie\\u2019s books: \\xa0Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass\\xa0and her second book\\xa0Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World\'s Best Bargain Wines\\xa0

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