'Working mainly as a wine writer for the past 15 years I've been lucky to travel to most of the key wine-producing regions of the world, visiting vineyards and meeting winemakers. Wine means much more to me than the liquid in a glass, however delicious. It's about enthusiastic, talented people; about landscape and history; about the alchemy of flavours created when wines are matched with the right foods.'

Journalism

• Wine editor of Irish monthly magazine The Gloss
• Contributor to the internationally acclaimed wine magazine Decanter
  covering New Zealand, Argentina, Australia and especially the Southern Rhône: Southern Rhône Crus (June 2009), Ventoux Gastrotour (November 2009), Travel Guide to Southern Rhône (February 2011) and Travel Guide to the Luberon (December 2011).
• Wine correspondent of The Irish Times for 10 years,1995-2005
• Wine columnist with the Irish magazine Food and Wine, 1997-2005

• Southern Rhône section of The Wine Opus (Dorling Kindersley, London and New York 2010) covers 88 top producers.
• 101 Great Wines Under €12 (A&A Farmar, Dublin 2008) was an Irish bestseller.
• Food & Wine - Matching Made Simple (Ryland, Peters & Small, London 2002) has been translated into eight languages including French and Russian.
• The Irish Times Best Wines (TownHouse, Dublin 2001) featured 250 top 'bottles of the week' from Mary's Irish Times columns.
  

• Planner and presenter of annual weekend wine courses at Ballymaloe House, Co Cork, since 2000
• Creator and presenter of The Gloss One-Day Wine Course launched in autumn 2008
• Convenor of The Merrion & The Gloss Wine Society which holds regular wine dinners at Dublin's Merrion Hotel
  

• International judge at wine competitions in Ireland and abroad, including Umbria, Venice and Australia
  

• The Southern Rhône (covered by Mary in provencefoodandwine.com and The Wine Opus - see Books above)
• Australia - especially Riesling and Semillon
• Organic and biodynamic wines