Our Story

One dark and stormy night, after a night out with friends, Gary Bean got to think­ing that the only thing that our per­fect town didn’t have was a fun, fes­tive and excit­ing wine tast­ing event. Known to be a man of action, Gary spoke to Mike and Weesa Hild, own­ers of Cork’s Fine Wines and Spir­its about the via­bil­ity of such an event. No sooner said than done, in June of 2003 Weesa and Gary began to dis­cuss how to start a wine tast­ing event and auction. They both wanted to use the event to help raise wine aware­ness and ben­e­fit local charities.

Gary and Weesa had no clue about how to go about orga­niz­ing the event, and as they say, “Igno­rance is bliss” and they forged onward to put together a com­mit­tee of ded­i­cated wine con­sumers. First, Shel­ley Sale of South­ern Wine and Spir­its, well known som­me­lier and wine expert, and Eric Fel­lows of Wells Fargo Bank, and pretty darn com­pe­tent with his wines as well, were 2 of the core board members.

Our first break came when Jack Lud­wig, then owner of Sil­ver Jack’s Steak House, gen­er­ously donated his bar area for the event.

Since the Boy’s and Girl’s Club was our cho­sen char­ity we enlisted their board and mem­bers to help with dona­tions and solic­it­ing of sponsors. We gave away tick­ets the first year to entice peo­ple to participate. Year one turned out to be a great suc­cess with over $30,000 raised.

Over the next 2 years we added new board mem­bers and expanded the event to include 2 days of wine tast­ing with auctions. It is really sat­is­fy­ing to see an idea become reality. Showing what can be accom­plished with a ded­i­cated and hard work­ing group of people. Our board has been know to have a lit­tle fun while stay­ing focused on the task at hand to raise money for local charities.

What started as a few and have grown to many car­ing indi­vid­u­als nec­es­sary to sup­port this excit­ing event. We’ve raised over $300,000.00 since we began in 2004. This is due to the ded­i­ca­tion of a com­mu­nity that clearly steps up to the plate to help sup­port our local charities.

Orig­i­nally this group of peo­ple thought they would file for non­profit sta­tus and become some­thing of a “foun­da­tion”. When we found out what that entailed, real­ity set in. We decided that the beauty and unique­ness of this group of peo­ple is we come together for two rea­sons and two rea­sons only-to taste extra­or­di­nary wine at a spir­ited, friendly and warm event and in the process raise money to give away to wor­thy pro­grams in our community.

Sim­ply put, we believe in this com­mu­nity and so do our spon­sors… we’re here to do the right thing.

…and that’s how it all began.

2012 Board Members:

Gary Bean,Shelley Sale, Weesa Hild, Lynette Bean, Vin Singh, Kelly Rhod­er­ick, Mendy Cof­fey and Teresa Bailey

Past Board Mem­bers include:

Con­nie Pruitt, Eric and Eliz­a­beth Fel­lows, Danielle Bueatu, Brady Fos­ter, Phuong Nguyen, David Swed­low, Jenni Sop­sic, Donn Wag­ner, Phuong Nguyen, Jean­nette Anderies, Anthony Dami­ano, Ryan Calla­han, Keno Rodriguez, Julie Disher, Trevor Davis, Kendra Mor­row, Heather Jen­nings and Sue Hansen