Wine Witch on Fire: Rising From the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much (Dundurn Press) is a powerful memoir about how one woman resurrects her life and career in the glamorous but sexist wine industry.
Natalie MacLean, a bestselling wine writer, is shocked when her husband of twenty years, a high-powered CEO, demands a divorce. Then an online mob of rivals comes for her career.
Wavering between despair and determination, she must fight for her son, rebuild her career, and salvage her self-worth using her superpowers: heart, humour, and an uncanny ability to pair wine and food.
Natalie questions her insider role in the slick marketing that encourages women to drink too much while she battles the wine world’s veiled misogyny. Facing the worst vintage of her life, she reconnects with the vineyards that once brought her joy, the friends who sustain her, and her own belief in second chances. This true coming-of-middle-age story is about transforming your life and finding love along the way.
Natalie MacLean was named the World’s Best Drinks Writer at the World Food Media Awards, and has won four James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. She is the only person to have won both the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation and the M.F.K. Fisher Award for Excellence in Culinary Writing from Les Dames d’Escoffier International.
Her previous wine books — Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass and Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines — were each selected as one of Amazon’s Best Books of the Year. Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much is her debut memoir.
Join Natalie at Closson Chase Vineyards on September 28th at 5 PM, for a conversation and tasting of wines hosted by award-winning actor and Closson Chase Owner Sonja Smits. She will be joined by Toronto Star Writer Signe Langford.
Tickets are $35 and include the wine tasting and a signed copy of Natalie’s memoir. Click here to purchase and learn more.