Mary Orlin is the James Beard and Emmy Award-winning wine journalist and co-host of the wine podcast Sip, Sip, Hooray! She is a Certified Sommelier and WSET 3 with Merit.
Her Sip Sip Hooray! podcast was named one of the 50 Best Wine Podcasts by Feedspot in 2025 and 2022 and was nominated for Taste Awards in 2025, 2023 and 2022. The podcast was named on of the top wine podcasts in 2021 by the San Jose Mercury News, and Liquor.com named Sip Sip Hooray! one of the five best wine podcasts of 2021.
Currently Mary writes about wine for Edible East Bay. In 2019 she was named a fellow for the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers in Napa Valley, and was also a fellow in 2011.
She is a wine judge for numerous prestigious wine competitions, including the International Concours Mondial du Sauvignon, Central Coast Wine Competition, Livermore Valley Uncorked!, Amador County Fair, Mendocino Wine Competition, California State Fair and Southern Oregon Wine Experience.
Most recently Mary was the wine writer for the San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times. While on staff she launched the video series “Eat Drink Play,” producing several videos per month. She led the coverage of the 2017 Wine Country fires, contributing to more than seven million online views and garnering national media pickups in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Previously Mary created the James Beard and Emmy-award winning TV series In Wine Country, on NBC. Each episode brought Wine Country into viewers homes across the country. During the show’s nine seasons, it became the longest running and most award-winning wine TV show in television history, to this day.
Her work has also been featured regularly in the San Francisco Magazine, Grape Collective, The Tasting Panel, Palate Press, HuffPost, Napa Sonoma Magazine, Diablo Magazine and Berkeleyside Nosh. In 2020 she was a Panelist the Wine Institute’s MarCom virtual conference. She’s been a speaker at the Santa Lucia Highlands Gala, contributed to the Lodi Winegrape Commission Lodi Wines Blog and developed and presented wine programs for Santa Clara Valley Hop N Vine. She has moderated wine panels at trade and consumer events and hosts winery and wine association virtual events on Zoom and Instagram Live and and in-person tastings.
Mary is a regular judge for the TasteTV annual Fragrance Salon Awards and also judged TasteTV’s Chocolate Salon Awards.