After graduation, Martin worked for
Lloyd's of London for two years before relocating to Tokyo in 1994 to work as an English teacher. In 1996, he accepted a position within a Japanese export company working with wine. When Martin found himself procuring such high-ticket wines as
Latour and
Petrus without knowing much about them, he enrolled in a
Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) wine certification course. Four years later, he passed the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines and Spirits, had traveled regularly to European wine regions and visited nearly all the major chateaux in Bordeaux several times; all the time recording tasting notes. In June 2003, he began writing an independent website, wine-journal.com, that quickly acquired over 100,000 readers. In 2006, he was approached by
Robert Parker to join
The Wine Advocate magazine as a reviewer. In 2012, after three years of research, he published his first book,
Pomerol. Comprising three main parts and totaling nearly 600 pages, one part deals with the history of the commune, another contains winery profiles organized alphabetically, and the final part considers every
Pomerol cru ever made. Martin decided to
self publish the book because, he said, "I'm stubborn and didn't want to compromise – I felt there were parts an editor would take out." Martin serves as an international wine judge in countries including the UK, South Africa, Japan, Bordeaux, Australia and at the International Wine Challenge as a Panel Chair. On 20 November 2017, it was announced that Martin would be leaving
The Wine Advocate to join Vinous as senior editor. == Awards ==