For the last 30 years, Karen has been a writer, consultant, and educator whose articles on wine and food have been published in more than 50 United States magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, and Town & Country.  She is the author of the award-winning book,The Wine Bible, a best-selling wine book in the United States that has sold more than 450,000 copies since it was released.  Ten years in the making, The Wine Bible has been called the most comprehensive and authoritative book on wine written by an American author. 

Karen is the host of Emmy-award winning Wine, Food & Friends with Karen MacNeil, the first television series on wine in the United States.  This thirteen-part series reached a national audience on PBS.  In 2006 her companion book, Wine, Food & Friends, was released.

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 wine center has been called the “Harvard of wine education.”  In 2007, she launched the Napa Valley Wine Educators Academy, a global education initiative that attracts wine instructors from all over the world to the Napa Valley for a week of intensive study.  She acts as the Academy’s creator and director.

Karen conducts wine seminars nationwide for individuals and corporations including Oracle, American Express, Lexus, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, Time Inc., NBC, Viking, and J.P. Morgan.  She is also a wine consultant for Singapore Airlines and Sunset Magazine.

In early 2008, Karen launched her website on eRobertParker.com, where she will provide online wine education, food and wine pairing strategies, and video interviews and tastings with the icons of the wine industry.

In 2004, Karen MacNeil received the highest honor awarded to a wine professional in the United States when the James Beard Foundation named her "Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional of the Year."  The following year, she was named "2005 Wine Educator of the Year" by the European Wine Council.  Past recipients of the Council's awards have included journalist Morley Safer (60 Minutes), filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, and winemaker Robert Mondavi.  In 2007, Karen was honored with the Wine Literary Award by the Wine Appreciation Guild for her substantial contribution to the literature of wine, joining laureates such as Hugh Johnson, Robert M. Parker, Jr., and Jancis Robinson.  The International Wine & Spirit Competition has nominated Karen for the 2008 “Communicator of the Year” award.  In a profile featured in Time Magazine in 2004, Karen was named America's "Missionary of the Vine."  She holds an Advanced Certified Wine Professional Degree.