History

Cul de Cuvée traces its long and storied past back to the late aughts of the 21st century in San Francisco, California.

Just as fancy cocktails were reemerging and Twitter seemed “like fun”, a well-read, but now-defunct neighborhood publication called, The Tender ran a regular feature called, “The Tender Bits”. It was written as a tongue-in-cheek round up of news bits in San Francisco with a focus on its home neighborhood of the Tenderloin—at the time more “colorful” than life-imitates-art “Sanctuary District”.

The section was wildly popular and continually a top-read feature of The Tender.

In mid-2013, Hudin.com decided to dig up the Tender Bits concept from its digital grave, bang it into shape for the wine world and run with it. Called “Fermentations”, it lasted all of three months.

Retooling was needed and it was attempted again in early 2021 as the Cul de Cuvée, eventually going through more quality control checks than a Boeing 737 DeathMax.

It was moved out to the Be Wine Curious newsletter in early 2023 which seemed a freeing, righteous fit, but the beast kept growing to be fully launched as its own publication in January, 2024 where you’re reading it today.

The concept remains the same: “attempt humor”.

Now we take it beyond link roundups by opening up the untapped resources of people who can indeed do funny, but have been trapped by the confines of modern publications concerned that things are perhaps too “smart” and might “confuse” readers or more importantly, scare off advertisers.

We thank you for throwing caution to the wind and joining us on this wild, zany ride.

For any inquiries, please write to: tete@culdecuvee.com & consider upgrading to a paid subscription to keep this fine history going.