"crushpad" news and stories

The folks behind social media site Twitter are expanding their empire to the wine business.

Beginning Thursday, Twitter is selling its own "Fledgling" wine, with the proceeds benefiting the nonprofit literacy group Room to Read, according to Jenna Sampson, a spokeswoman for Twitter.

San Francisco wine company Crushpad is helping Twitter make the vino. The company, which enables wine enthusiasts to make, sell and design their own wine, is providing everything from the grapes and equipment to expertise and advice for the social networking site.

"We gradually started meeting people [from Twitter]," and the idea of a outreach collaboration simply "kept growing and growing and growing," said Noah Dorrance, marketing director for Crushpad.

Don't tell me that after watching the mvie Sideways you didn't have the teeniest tiniest inkling of a fantasy of dropping everything, moving to wine country and making your simple living as a winemaker. Heck, I had that dream. I even had that dream back when I first saw French Kiss.

But that was a dream. Reality is you have a career, a family, friends, and a whole host of other responsibilities.

You may not be able to go and live on a vineyard, but San Francisco company CrushPad can at least get you as close to making your own wine without leaving your real life. Crushpad provides grapes from California vineyards, and from there, you decide how much you want to be involved in making your own wine, using resources like their team of winemakers. You don't even have to live in California!