Our History
In 1999, internationally syndicated wine columnist, Taylor Eason, founded the Tampa chapter of Wine Brats to demystify wine for a younger audience. To gather new members, she and a team of volunteers relied on word-of-mouth and email marketing, a.k.a. social networking of the 1990's. In 2004, when Wine Brats National shut down, the Wine Brats team immediately launched a 501-C7 non-profit wine tasting group called Tampa Bay Uncorked. Over the next four years, we hosted frequent tasting events with over one hundred attendees, aged 40 and under that raised over $50,000 for local charities.
In 2008, the club merged with Creative Loafing Newspaper to become Creative Loafing Wine Club, but it became too corporate for our tastes, so we took back the reins. We still boast over 3,200 members across the Tampa Bay area. The current Leadership Team consists of Jon Pello, Chrysteile Murphy, JL Wagner, Mike Hydorn, Angela Lynne, Ellie Klein and Kendra Greseth.
In 2008, the club merged with Creative Loafing Newspaper to become Creative Loafing Wine Club, but it became too corporate for our tastes, so we took back the reins. We still boast over 3,200 members across the Tampa Bay area. The current Leadership Team consists of Jon Pello, Chrysteile Murphy, JL Wagner, Mike Hydorn, Angela Lynne, Ellie Klein and Kendra Greseth.
