To fund her late-night vinous habits, Natalie MacLean holds down day jobs as a wine writer, speaker and judge. An accredited sommelier, she is a member of the National Capital Sommelier Guild, the Wine Writers Circle and several French wine societies with complicated and impressive names.

At the World Food Media Awards in Australia, Natalie was named the World's Best Drink Writer. She is the only person to have won both the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Found