Blog

At FineArtView's 2007 inception, I penned the original tagline: "Straight Talk about Art, Marketing, Inspiration and Fine Living." 

At the time, I envisioned the "Fine Living" series to include articles about wine and travel.  And, indeed, we do often feature a recommended wine in the sidebar, and have ocassionally touched on travel and other "fine" topics.  But, the newsletter has developed in a way that it is primarily about art marketing.

Last spring, when planning a trip to California wine country, I utilized the FineArtViews list to solicit feedback from our awesome subscribers.  I hoped for information regarding vineyards to visit, B&B's to book, and towns to include on our intenerary [1].  The hundreds of amazing, thoughtful responses uncovered a community of wine lovers within the FineArtViews family.  Thank you so much to everyone who shared their wine experiences and advice with me!

It's evident that people do want to share wine culture with each other, however, since FineArtViews' editorial calendar is now so full, it's difficult for me to work in many wine or "Fine Living" articles.  So, last year, when I started my personal blog at http://faso.com/clintavo, I, again, intended it to be about "Art, Marketing, Wine and Life".  I wanted a place to share life stories, funny anecdotes, art thoughts that are too small for FAV, and, of course, posts about wine.   And since launch, as I've posted about wine on my personal blog, the feedback, again, has been great.

Clearly, Art and Wine go together.  And the wine lovers in our community love connecting with one another.  Many of us are united in our love of both art and wine.

I thought the story would end here, with me connecting with wine lovers in our community via my personal blog.  But it doesn't.....

I've recently become good friends with the best sommelier at one of the finest restaurants in San Antonio.  And one night I asked him if he'd like to write about wine for my newsletter.  He said yes. Not only was he was very interested, but said that he had always wanted to write about wines.  Then, a few days after that conversion, my dad sent me a great article about wine that he had written, and asked if I'd like to share it with my readers.  I said yes.

Then a couple more people started getting excited about the idea of a wine newsletter and have articles they'd like to share.

As I prepared to post the first of these articles, I took a step back from the send button because I suddenly realized that it didn't make sense to have a personal blog space where people go to read my personal thoughts, only to find a bunch of guest authors.  And, with FAV's focus mostly on art marketing, I decided that we need a separate, dedicated place for the wine lovers among us to gather.  So I made one.

Today, I'm excited to announce BottleFolio.  FASO's first non-art service.  Just as Sharing Art Enriches Life, so too does Sharing Wine Enrich Life.

We'll be sharing wines we love in BottleFolio, as well as building a "folio" of bottles you should consider trying.  I have already lined up commitments from the writers mentioned above as well as myself.  The focus will mostly be on the wine itself, but as it grows, we also plan to share great wine locales, trip stories, trip ideas and, really, anything wine related.

We certainly encourage you, if you're a wine lover, to sign up for our new semi-weekly, maybe sometimes daily BottleFolio newsletter!

And even more, we hope you'll participate in our community and tell us about your favorite bottles of wine.

Remember, Sharing Wine Enriches Life!

Clint Watson

FASO Founder, Software Craftsman, Art Fanatic [and wine lover]

PS - Don't forget to sign up for BottleFolio here.

**********

[1]  The wine country trip had to be cancelled for several reasons, but we do still plan to utilize all your awesome suggestions and are hoping to do a wine country trip in 2014.