#winetribe

My name is Kevin Elliott, founder of WineTribe. I have a confession to make: I passionately love wine, and I love the wineries that make the wine just as much.

Like many other college students do, I started off my early exploration of alcohol with a bang. I often enjoyed an adult beverage because of the funny things it did to my state of equilibrium. But it didn't take long until I learned to appreciate it, value it, and begin to understand it. Wine of course bubbled up to the top of my list very quickly because of its character, sophistication, and availability; I do live in California, the 'mecca' of wine after all. Now as an adult, I simply can't stop thinking about wine.

As if enjoying a delicious selection of wine from my locality wasn't enough, I soon grew to develop and avid thirst for traveling the world (and frankly, I just don't get to travel often enough these days while I'm busy coding away in a dark closet making WineTribe as great as can be). Visiting interesting (or outright strange) places is certainly a passion of mine. You know, it didn't take long before I decided it would be really cool to combine the two: enjoying excellent wine, and exploring new places.

Thus, I started going to wineries and their tasting rooms. Visiting wineries and tasting the interesting wines that they each made with a different terroir, different technique, but the same passionate love for wine became quite a past time for me. It became a secondary but important interest of mine (with my first creating great technology products). Each winery created a little oasis in their geographical area with estate vineyards, interesting tasting rooms, and a very welcomed sense of overindulgence. Some wineries had outdoor seating under the northern California sun, and others had interactive art made from water and steel. Certainly they all catered to making you feel relaxed, welcome, and 'at home.'

I have spent the last 7 years visiting quite possibly thousands of wineries (not counting the years in my youth when my father took me to Napa when I wasn't yet legal to partake). I've grown to value and appreciate the wineries just as much as I do their wine. I've talked with hundreds of winemakers, learning about their craft, their passions, and their goals. I have learned about their processes, their shortcomings, and their addictions to making the best wine they can for their loyal followers. I have tried wine at many wineries that doesn't even exist on the market yet (called barrel tasting, much like a winemaker does to see how the aging process is coming along). I have stayed at their amazing winery accommodations. And most importantly, I have met some of the most interesting and friendly people I have ever met in my life.

I no longer felt that this pleasure could only be enjoyed by myself and close friends. I had to share it with the world. I wanted to tell everyone what amazing experiences await them in 'wine country.' So I created WineTribe... a social winery discovery platform. I want to connect with the people who occasionally drink wine and show them the world of the winery. Those already familiar with this will still find WineTribe to be an amazing place to learn about all of the wineries they have yet to visit. It's like Facebook+Yelp for wineries, tasting rooms, wine bars, and wine events; but it's going to be much more than that. It's a place for people passionate about wine to discover wine that they'll love, places to drink wine, and others to enjoy it with.

We've been drinking wine for many, many years. Over the years our taste for wine has become more sophisticated, but we still like to have fun with it. And that's what makes wine so great these days... it's accessible, fun, and most of all, everyone has a different taste for it. What really makes wine fun is when you're drinking it with other people.

We want to help people enjoy wine by discovering with their friends. We want to see what our friends are drinking, where they are tasting at, and what cool wine bar they're sipping at after work. We want to connect wineries making interesting wines that match the tastes of drooling customers. We want to help people discover great upcoming wine events, and help them plan going to them with their friends. Ultimately, this is what has led us to create WineTribe.

We're still in development, but you can take a look at what we've created so far by visiting the WineTribe website. We've got great iPhone, iPad, and Android apps in development too! After all, what fun is visiting wineries if you can't have WineTribe in your pocket?

Before we tread forward with our official public launch, we're building up our database of wineries, tasting rooms, wine bars, and events. This is a very time consuming process, so if you would like to help, please submit your favorite wineries and wine bars. We will reward users with the largest contributions with wine tasting passes and wine!