Karen MacNeil is the only American to have won every major wine award given in the English Language. These include the prestigious James Beard award for Wine and Spirits Professional of the Year, the Louis Roederer award for Best Consumer Wine Writing, the International Wine and Spirits award as the Global Wine Communicator of the Year and the Wine Appreciation Guild’s Wine Literary Award. In a full-page profile on her, TIME Magazine called Karen “America’s Missionary of the Vine.” Karen has been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Wine in the United States.”
Karen is the author of the award-winning book, THE WINE BIBLE (now in its third edition), praised as “a masterpiece of wine writing.” THE WINE BIBLE has sold more than one million copies and was featured in the 2020 Netflix series Uncorked and the Starz series Sweet Bitter.
The former wine correspondent for the Today Show on NBC, Karen was also the host of the PBS series Wine, Food and Friends with Karen MacNeil, for which she won an Emmy. Most recently, Karen was the host and narrator of the documentary Amphorae Project: Past Forward, which won Best Short Documentary 2023 at the International Documentary Film Festival in the Republic of Georgia.
Karen gives speeches, seminars and presentations to wine audiences globally and is known for her passion and style. Her firm, Karen MacNeil & Company, creates customized, bespoke wine experiences around the world for groups and corporations including global law firms and investment banks.
Karen is the creator of the digital platform WineSpeed.com and editor-in-chief of the weekly digital newsletter WineSpeed. Her articles have been published in more than 50 newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, Town & Country, Food & Wine, and Worth.
Karen’s line of glassware—the Flavor First Collection—debuted in 2020. The unique affordable collection is designed around a wine’s flavors rather than wine regions or varieties.
Karen was the creator of the Culinary Institute of America’s Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies and is now Chair Emerita of the wine school. She also currently teaches a wine course at Stanford University. The course—Exploring Wine’s Connection to Place and Culture: Stories in a Bottle—is one of the university’s most popular Continuing Education courses.
In 2021, the University of California at Davis added Karen’s papers to the Warren Winiarski Wine Writers’ Collection in its library, which also includes the papers of Hugh Johnson, Jancis Robinson, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher.
In 2023 Karen was honored by the Wine History Project as “the most influential wine educator and writer in the United States.” That same year, the Napa County Historical Society included her as the only writer in their exhibit Napa’s Pioneering Women: Two Centuries of Women Who Have Changed Napa’s Cultural Landscape.
And finally, Mattel created a special Barbie modeled on Karen. “Wine Barbie”—holding a glass of red wine—now sits on Karen’s desk.
More information is available at www.karenmacneil.com.
