A Wine Education Online… Courtesy of Vinesse

From the time Vinesse was founded as a single wine club, education has been a key component of the experience for club members.

Not only has an informative sheet which we call a “Tasting Note” been produced for each featured wine, but a monthly newsletter also has been published — packed with wine and food-pairing suggestions, recipes, wine touring tips, information about the world’s great growing areas, profiles of respected wineries and much more.

One of the more popular elements of the newsletter has been the monthly wine-related quote. We’ve culled the quotes from a wide array of sources: winemakers, authors, philosophers, politicians, movie characters… even comedians. If someone had something interesting to say about wine, it eventually found its way into The Grapevine.

Of course, times change, and so has The Grapevine. Originally a print publication that was included with each club wine shipment, it later became an online newsletter when people started getting most of their news on their computers. Today, smart phones have replaced computers as the information source of choice for most Americans. So, the decision was made to retire The Grapevine, and give full attention to its sister informational source, this Vinesse TODAY blog. The May 2016 edition will be the final issue of The Grapevine.

As the person who researched, wrote, edited and proofread The Grapevine, I’d like to say that it was a true pleasure producing that product for nearly 20 years. I’d also like to thank our art director, Bill, who brought the pages of the newsletter to life with some exceptional photography and other artwork, not to mention his graphic design skills. It’s a particularly poignant time to say good-bye to this project since Bill is facing some serious health issues. If you’ve read and enjoyed The Grapevine through the years, I know you’ll join me in wishing Bill the best.

More than a decade of Grapevine newsletters have been archived online. You can access them here.

If you’re going to miss those monthly wine quotes, you’ll find them in most of those issues. Also, I recently ran across a list of 10 memorable movie wine quotes, complied by the “Notes from the Cellar” blog. If you don’t mind a little adult language, you can check that out here.

Finally, as The Grapevine has morphed from a printed newsletter to an online newsletter to this blog, I hope you’ll check it out daily. Whether you do so on your smart phone or your computer makes no difference to me. We simply want to make sure you keep getting your daily dose of wine news, recipes and more.