Bay Area
Wine Society
About Us
The Bay Area Wine Society seeks to encourage the appreciation of wine in all its many dimensions from the juice itself to viticulture and human culture. The goal here is to keep it informal and fun yet informative. Anyone can coordinate a program or suggest a place to gather, so please take advantage of our participatory approach. I'm sure there will be takers for almost every occasion.
We sponsor sit down blind tastings whose results are posted on our blog and walk around tastings, both featuring new releases from limited production California wineries. We also administer wine sales and facilitate fulfillment between the participating wineries and members.
The Society, a not-for-profit 501(c)7 "social club" (pending), was founded and continues to be administered by Tom Merle. A fifth generation San Franciscan whose relatives still make wine in the south of France, Tom attended Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, received his B.A. in philosophy from Georgetown and a masters in humanities from the University of Chicago, with additional graduate work in urban affairs, political science and sociology at Berkeley. Career 1.0 included governmental affairs and regional planning for several local governments, the American Planning Association, and the Bay Area Council, followed by managing and marketing master planned communities for Mobil Land Development Corp. then Chevron's equivalent, including Redwood Shores, Red Mountain Ranch in Arizona, and Hilltop in Richmond.
Career 2.0 veered off in another direction: Executive Director of Family Winemakers of CA, then organizing tours and tastings, business development for such fulfillment (wine shipping) companies as WSN, Wrap-it Transit and Copper Peak, and managing seminars and an information exchange on best social media practices. Tom has been holding tastings for alumni groups, museums, corporations and groups such as the California Historical Society and the Commonwealth Club for a dozen years.
If you have any questions about our membership procedure or programs please send an email to: info@BayAreaWineSociety.org . Or call TOM at 707.337.3663.
You can join our organization by clicking on the membership tab.
