seeking bottled poetry

We bought a little piece of land in the redwoods about 115 miles north of San Francisco in 2004 and the wheels started turning. During my trips to Northern California I experienced how special single vineyard and estate wines were. The vast majority of those were not available in Minneapolis, Minnesota where I lived. The thought, the plan started with www.CaliforniaWineOnline.com and it evolved into seeking bottled poetry.

In 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that states that allow in state shipments of wine couldn't restrict shipments from out of state.  This opened the possibility for people across the country to learn about, purchase and enjoy exquisite single vineyard and estate wines from California. For three years I had hosted wine tasting parties in my house to learn about wine and I saw great potential for a business model.

For two years, from 2005 to 2007, while I ran a small business I had owned for nearly ten years, we prepared our house to put it on the market. In my spare time I learned Dreamweaver web development software, researched all about California wines and their regions and began to develop the website.  In particular I wanted to know about the specific wine types:  Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. and what made each unique because of where they grew.  We sold our house in May 2007.  I closed my business to work on the project fulltime. 

I bought a decent camera - a Canon 400D and started shooting pictures.  I figured a web site had little appeal without images.  I joined flickr so I could learn about photography.  I immediately got attention within that community.  

Finally, February 2008 I took my first expedition to California to do actual tasting and photography, collect wines and put together the concept for wine events, books and other products.  The image below is a cover concept for a book. Click on the image to see it large.