Karen MacNeil | Chefs | PBS Food

Karen MacNeil

Learn more about Karen MacNeil
Karen MacNeil is one of the foremost wine experts in the United States. She is the author of the award-winning book, The Wine Bible, recognized as “the most comprehensive and authoritative book on wine written by an American author.”

Karen’s articles on wine and food have been published in more than 50 magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, Food and Wine, U.S.A. Today, Elle, Cooking Light, and Town & Country. Karen has also brought her style and love of wine to television—first as the wine correspondent for NBC’s Today Show, and later as the Emmy-award winning host of the PBS television series Wine, Food & Friends with Karen MacNeil. In 2006 her companion book, Wine, Food & Friends, was released.

With her team at Karen MacNeil & Company, Karen creates and consults on one-of-a-kind wine experiences, seminars, and programs for corporate clients, businesses and individuals. Some recent past clients include: Lexus, Merrill Lynch, Disney, General Electric, UBS, World Presidents Organization, Sunset Magazine, Singapore Airlines, and Mattel (who, in recognition, designed a wine-glass-holding Barbie look-alike after Karen!)

An educator at heart, Karen is the creator and Chairman of the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the Culinary Institute of America in the Napa Valley. The multi-million dollar center with its advanced wine curriculum and state-of-the art wine sensory classrooms has been called the “Harvard of Wine Education.”

In a full page profile in 2004, TIME magazine named Karen “America’s Missionary of the Vine.” She holds an Advanced Certified Wine Professional Degree.

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