10th Birthday this year!

It's hard to believe it, but On the Grapevine is 10 years old this year. We opened the doors for the first time on St. Patrick's Day 1999. We first met John, our landlord, in early December 1998 with the crazy idea of opening a wine shop in this new unit he had just built as part of a mixed development off the main street in Dalkey. Dalkey is a funny place in terms of what works and what doesn't and he wanted to make sure that whatever went in was there for the long haul. So, we met him, presented our plan and he liked the idea. Then we went to the bank, back when they were lending money to people and they gave us the green light as well. All of a sudden, from having a pipe dream, we were in the position where we could do this thing if we had the courage. It was one of those things where you would spend your life saying "What if....?" if you DIDN't do it, so really we had no option but to try it out.

We were both in reasonably well-paid jobs, both very busy lives. We were just married, no children, starting out in life. We had no experience in the wine trade and, although we both liked and were interested in wine, we really knew very little about the world of wine. So, it was a leap in the dark, to say the least. But we did leap - Pam gave up her job in Feb 99 and set about getting the shop open. I stayed on in my job for the first 6 months just in case...

More about history another day.