Wine Learning Hub is the ultimate online community for wine education, dedicated to making it simple, fun and affordable for wine lovers of all backgrounds, experiences and ages (over 21, of course) to deepen their understanding and, with it, their appreciation of everyone’s favorite finer thing: wine.

Some of us are whiskey drinkers, some prefer a nice G&T or a good craft brew, but nothing brings the community of grown-up drinkers together quite like wine.

Once we grow out of our cheap beer and jello shots phase, wine becomes the center of the social universe where alcohol is concerned: it’s what you bring when a friend invites you to a dinner party; it’s what you give your boss as a “thank you” gift; it’s what you talk about at parties, work functions, networking events…

And knowing about wine brings with it much more than the ability to choose the right bottle to go with your steak dinner — it brings a whole plethora of personal, social and professional perks as well. Knowing about wine can give you an almost-instant bump in perception on all kinds of metrics, from intelligence to income to attractiveness (because what’s sexier than a man—or woman—who knows their wine?)

There’s just one small problem: until now, access to education about wine has been elite as knowing about it makes you seem. The only people who have been able to learn about wine have been the people who could afford to do it, paying for pricey classes and winery tours.

At Wine Learning Hub, our mission is simple: make access to wine education affordable and accessible to everyone and anyone who wants to learn about it. Sound good? Read on to learn more about how you can help make that vision a reality today!

With Wine Learning Hub, anyone and everyone can take their knowledge of wine to the next level — whether they’re a new wine drinker who doesn't know their Chianti from their Cabernet, or a seasoned connoisseur looking to freshen their memory about the finer points of distinction between various pinot noirs.

Wine Learning Hub goes way beyond watching a YouTube video or reading a lengthy article and not understanding a word of what they’re saying: we’ve designed our platform around cutting-edge information about how people learn and process information today. Like Duolingo for learning Spanish or French, Wine Learning Hub breaks learning about wine up into a series of short, engaging online courses that are right there, ready to go on your smartphone or other mobile device. But instead of learning a foreign language, you’re learning the language of wine!

Discovering the world of wine with Wine Learning Hub means:

Wine makes us happy, and at Wine Learning Hub we think learning about wine should make us happy, too! We keep our courses light and interactive with games and activities, so learning with WLH isn’t just informative — it’s fun, too!

With the Wine Learning Hub app on your smartphone or other mobile device, you learn from anywhere at anytime — even while sitting at the bar drinking your new favorite wine! And since we know you’re busy, and will probably do your lessons on the fly when you have a few moments in the middle of a hectic day, WLH is designed to give you the flexibility to learn at your own pace!

WLH courses feature the most knowledgeable sommeliers, vintners, tasting room managers, chefs, and bartenders in the business. Each month, WLH will introduce you to trend-setting wine professionals, who will lead discussions, host live classes (webinars) and answer your questions in the 'Ask the Expert' forum.

We know learning about wine can be hard — especially if you're drinking at the same time! So we’ve built incentives right into the Wine Learning Hub system to keep your motivation high and reward you for your hard work. You can win prizes, earn badges and certificates of completion, plus compete in weekly wine review contests (a tweet or video) the best swirl (not twerk) video and other awesome competitions to show off your newly developed skills.

We’re not saying that Wine Learning Hub can replace the experience of touring a winery, but we also know a trip to Napa isn’t on everybody’s itinerary. That’s why Wine Learning Hub is designed to be affordable and accessible to all anyone and everyone: membership is free, enrollment is open, your pace is up to you — with Wine Learning Hub, you’re in control of your wine learning experience. Plus when you do take that big winery trip, you’ll wow your entire group and your guide with your impressive wine knowledge!

Founder Monica Gragg began Wine Learning Hub out of a deep belief that knowledge should be accessible and affordable to everyone, regardless of social status or financial situation. These values were instilled in her at an early age by her parents, both of whom ended their education at the high-school level, but worked hard to provide their children with access to the opportunities that they knew would lead to a better life.

Monica went on to finish college and earn a Master's degree. Monica has studied abroad in Spain, England and Switzerland and worked in China, Japan and Australia in areas spanning hospitality, tourism and higher education.

Through it all, thanks to her upbringing, Monica has never lost sight of how her education afforded her certain opportunities and privileges, and she has never lost her passion for making access to education on all kinds of topics more widely available. She is currently in the midst of PhD studies in Education with a specialization in Educational Technology, which she has postponed temporarily in order to focus full-time on applying her research on social and online learning in the real world — in other words, to make Wine Learning Hub a reality!

Wine Learning Hub is in the early stages, but we've made great progress so far.

We have 2 wineries confirmed to act as the basis for our first courses, and 3 wine experts on board as instructors. A Learning Management System (LMS) company has agreed to work with us at a discounted rate because they see the potential value of Wine Learning Hub and what we’re building. And with nothing but a landing page and a $10 Google AdWords budget, we gained 150 subscribers in just one month, who are already looking forward to the day that Wine Learning Hub is live and ready to help them discover the world of wine!

And the Wine Learning Hub vision goes far beyond just wine: we're planning Learning Hubs for beer, whiskey and cigars as well, which will take the same Wine Learning Hub principles of fun, affordable, accessible learning opportunities and apply them to these other "finer things in life."

We've had some incredible success already: now the time is right to harness all of that momentum and make the final push that will bring Wine Learning Hub to life, and that's where this crowdfunding campaign and your help come in!

With this crowdfunding campaign, our goal is to raise $11,000 to help us take the final steps and get Wine Learning Hub ready for launch.

• Completing the Hub, both the app and the learning management system: $5,000
• Hiring some key staff, including quality production techs and video editing experts: $3,000
• Building out the Wine Learning Hub landing page: $180
• Completing our Go Pro function for active shots for courses, including winemaker’s view, chefs view, tasting manager’s view: $600
• Covering legal fees related to finalizing development : $1,000
• Bringing a social media management team on board to help us spread the word about Wine Learning Hub: $1,500

We have some great rewards lined up to thank you for supporting the Wine Learning Hub vision:

We'll raise our glasses to you to thank you for helping make Wine Learning Hub a reality, for a pledge that’s just a few bucks more than what you'd spend on a bottle of wine anyway!

Do you have a favorite wine, or a favorite celebrity chef you're interested in learning about wine from? Pledge $25 and you’ll be able to nominate a specific winery or expert for the Wine Learning Hub to actively pursue to feature on the hub. If they say yes, we’ll write a few courses with them. We’ll also give you a custom made wine list based on your budget and preferred varietal, designed by our leading wine expert, Stefan Hansen.

You'll receive a sneak preview of one of the interactive courses! And since a $200 pledge shows that your belief in the Learning Hub concept goes far beyond wine, we'll send you a little swag representing your support of our wine, beer and whiskey hubs: a bottle of wine from our first winery, a beer tie (http://www.beertie.com), plus an iPhone case with a famous whiskey quote: “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”

Our Wine Learning Hub experts will design a complete course for or with you, and you'll receive exclusive marketing rights based on our learning analytics and big data capabilities.