While starting a business doesn’t get any easier, the upside is that it continuously gets more exciting! A lot of great things have been accomplished this past week, though every administrative step seems to be double the amount of time and processes originally anticipated. Every success leads to another unexpected or unknown expense required to ensure the business runs effectively and at its best. This is not a bad thing, just a part of the learning process, and I am learning a lot! This week’s big successes were completing the business plan, signing the company agreement, finding a CPA and an ISP provider. I also found a great source to learn about crowdfunding…stay tuned for more information on this soon! If I had only I known the right questions to ask about these topics while sitting in my favorite wine bar in Carlsbad, CA just 2-3 years ago, dreaming of what it would be like to own a wine shop…
Here’s the backstory… In 2017, when I moved back to California (for the fourth time in my life), I set out to find a place where I could buy some of the amazing wines that I had been so lucky to try during my time in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France and Italy, only a few years before. I eventually found a great wine bar and retail shop that offered the perfect mix of international wines that I loved and sold them for very decent prices. It was also there that I was introduced to many of my new favorite California wines. I fell in love with reds and rosés from Paso Robles, Napa, Sonoma, St. Helena, Calistoga, and so many other wine regions throughout northern California.
While there are now a nearly overwhelming amount of types and varietals of wines available to buyers, there is a completely different market of wines from the small boutique wineries and vineyards that very few people know about. Having the chance to taste and buy these wines is a big part of the appeal of visiting places like Napa and Paso Robles. The wine country is perfect for going to a tasting or discovering a local restaurant that happens to carry some exclusive or little known, yet, amazing wines. However, once you leave these locations, it is hard to find these wines again and you may have to buy a case or more to make it worth the cost of shipping, if able to buy straight from the winery at all.
Wine Culture is here to streamline that process and bring you those exclusive and hard-to-get boutiques wines. We will work with wineries around the world to bring you the tastes and bottles of wine that you almost can’t get, unless you have visited these places, yourself. Our monthly wine pairing dinners will feature some of these beautiful wines and give you the opportunity to learn about the vineyard, the winery, and the winemaker. You won’t want to miss these events as a part of the Wine Culture community. We will do our best to ensure that every wine you try takes you to a special place that is essentially “the next best thing to being there.” These dinners will leave you planning your next trip to actually visit these amazing wineries in person.