The Traveling Vine
Brittany Wright and her husband Jermaine love wine, so much so that they (and several other family members) decided to visit every winery in Virginia (they’ve been to over 50 so far). They also started doing wine tastings in their man cave at home.
“We would go to the grocery store, grab a particular set of wines from one company and pretend we were the winery owners and present it to our family for fun,” Wright said.
Two years laters in 2019, the couple created The Traveling Vine with the initial idea of being a wine truck but the pandemic had other plans.
“We wanted to go anywhere food trucks were located and sell wine, [we] also … wanted to go serve wine friends at weddings, cookouts, birthday parties and [more],” Wright said. “But due to COVID, we thought it would be better, more controlled, if we started out in a storefront and came up with the ‘different region every two week’ aspect so we could keep our name, The Traveling Vine.”
Despite their fears, Wright said the couple took a leap of faith and decided to open during the pandemic.
“We began renovations in August and, at that point, we didn’t know how long COVID would last, so we just took it a day at a time,” Wright said. “Despite COVID, we did really well from the time we opened [in] October until around December when that second wave hit and emergency orders went back into effect. Business slowed temporarily but after New Years, things were back to normal.”
Wright describes The Traveling Vine as a wine tasting room where you can sample wines from all around the world (they also have house-made sangria, wine flights, wine by the glass, cold plates and more). So far, they’ve had wine from Italy, Spain, South Africa and France and the regions are switched every two weeks because it “is our hope that our wine friends don’t get the same wines every time they visit”.
The couple selects regions by browsing through the portfolio of their distributing company, and tastings include eight wines so they like to have a variety of dry and sweet wines. They’ve also had customers suggest regions to visit and Wright said South African wines are a big favorite.
Wright said she encourages first time customers to experience and try everything, which is also why they carry a variety of wines.
When it comes to their own personal tastes, Wright, though her palate changes often, loves a good dry wine (like a Cabernet Sauvignon) because it pairs well with some of her favorite foods like steak and other red meat, whereas Jermaine’s favorites are sweet dessert wines.
The Traveling Vine is located in Old Towne Petersburg, chosen because the Wrights have ties to the area and wanted to contribute to the revitalization of the city. Wright said everyone is thrilled to have a wine tasting room in the area and, even though they’re still trying to market themselves more, the response has been great from customers and neighboring business owners.
Wright said so far they’ve met really nice people, which has been the most rewarding part for her, and watching them come in and wine down, relax and enjoy themselves means everything to them. The couple wants to revisit their initial idea of having a wine truck and they also want to extend their services to weddings and other events.
“We want to have more indoor events, like sip and paint. Also we are still a wine tasting room,” Wright said, “so we would even love to host a winery that’s not so close, bring their wines in and we present them, like a local highlight week. Just like the old days out of our house.”
The Traveling Vine is located in the Old Town Historic District at 15 W. Old Street. Summer hours are Wednesdays to Saturdays, 4 pm to 9 pm and reservations are required for parties of five or more.
