About Third Place Wine®

Hi, I’m Deborah.

I’m a plant killer🔪, yoga 🧘🏻‍♀️ and wine enthusiast 🍷 

I’ll tell you a little bit about my vision for Third Place Wine®, myself and answer some FAQs.

The vision

My goal is to create a global community of curious wine enthusiasts—starting with this blog.

I’m also organizing events when I can, so if you’re interested in joining the Flight Club Cru, make sure to peep the events page and join the Third Place Wine® WhatsApp community. Right now it’s all local, though one day it will scale beyond me so that Third Placers can meet up no matter where they are in the world. At this stage, you can help speed that along by subscribing, sharing, and following me on Instagram @thirdplacewine.

Here, I will share stories about wine, lessons I’m learning and a view of the process of building TPW. Every post will leave you feeling a little smarter, more prepared to win a pub quiz, and equipped to break the ice with random fun facts. If I can manage to make you laugh along the way, even better.

If good wine and good vibes is something you are into, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss a post!

Who am I?

I’m a half-Chinese/Dutch American who grew up in California and have been living in Europe the past decade. I started traveling from a young age thanks to my first career as a model, which I did while also getting my undergraduate degree in Asian Studies and Political Science.

Among the places I’ve been, the most consequential were China and Hong Kong, which ultimately influenced my decision to leave modeling to work on the “business” side of fashion. I went to trade school, then started as a production assistant before working as a wholesale merchandiser developing and producing private-label clothing for retail clients.

I eventually moved to Palo Alto, where I co-founded a crowd-sourcing jewelry design platform, then worked for a remote-presence startup before moving to France and Singapore for my MBA at INSEAD.

From there, I was recruited to join Amazon in Luxembourg where (plot twist) I now work for a financial institution. Along the way, I learned enough about wine to annoy people and to not afford my taste (more on that below).

Why “Third Place”?

According to American sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, our first place is the home and our second place is the workplace. Third places are informal public gathering spaces between the two that anchor community life, such as cafés, clubs, and churches. Third places create a sense of place.

I chose “Third Place” because the most meaningful thing about wine is the sense of community and connection it creates. From the stories of the people who make it to the memories made with the people we share it with, wine is inherently social.

I also chose “Third Place” for its double entendre (and probably what most people think of when they first hear “Third Place”), “third-best”. It’s an important reminder to not take ourselves too seriously. Third Place Wine® is a place for good wine and good vibes.

How did you get into wine?

My interest in wine started rather unremarkably: as a teen, I was at a restaurant with my family and my father had ordered a bottle of wine from what seemed like a dictionary-sized wine list. I wondered how on Earth anyone would know what to pick. My dad responded, “You just know as you drink more.” While true, that wasn’t particularly illuminating (love you, Dad!).

Over the years, I maintained a casual interest, going to wine tastings and including winery visits from time to time during my travels when I could—I even organized trips and tasting visits for friends—but without a structured approach to learning though, nothing stuck. I felt intimidated by sommeliers.

I told myself “one day” I would take a sabbatical and study wine “properly” so that I might be able to pick a wine with 90% certainty that I would like it. In 2019, while telling another wine enthusiast about this, he confronted me: “Why wait to take a sabbatical? Nothing is stopping you from studying now.” I realized I had been delaying for years for absolutely no good reason. So, I decided to begin.

Since I wanted to do things “properly”, after some research I enrolled in a Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) course in wine. At the time, there were no WSET providers in Luxembourg, so I had to travel to Berlin to study over a series of weekends. Then, in March 2020, in the middle of my course, the first of many COVID lockdowns interrupted my studies, as previously-open borders shut to non-Europeans within the Schengen area.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, my study path became a speculative endeavor, triangulating my work schedule with course availability in English, guessing when the next lockdown would occur and to what degree before making the financial and time commitment to proceed. Finally, I managed to complete the WSET Level 3 Award in Wines with Distinction in Paris by the end of 2021.

While I managed to achieve my goal to be able to pick out a wine with 90% certainty that I would like it, I also discovered that I really enjoyed learning about wine. The experience stoked my curiosity and boosted my confidence. Instead of feeling intimidated, I felt excited to discover something new. I love talking to sommeliers now.

Following my curiosity kicked off a wild and wacky ride I never would have imagined.

By the end of 2022, I decided to start Third Place Wine® because I thought it would be fun to create a place where I could pursue my curiosity and do cool wine stuff with people.

By mid-2023, following a stint at Write of Passage, I started publishing regularly, and was awarded a Golden Vines® Wine Scholar Guild (WSG) scholarship for the WSG French Wine Scholar program. I started hosting Flight Club events and dabbling in vineyard work on a tiny parcel near Bous which I endearingly named “Clos Bousgeot”. I wrapped the year with my first harvest experience in Burgundy picking grapes for Domaine William Kelley and raising funds for non-profits serving the victims of the 7 October terrorist attack.

At the beginning of 2024, I was able to secure a few rows of Riesling in a Mosel-adjacent plot which I call “Dernier Cru” for one season and have been learning the process of growing and making wine by doing. 2024 is proving to be a difficult season, especially for a debutante, but I’ve been incredibly lucky to learn and receive the patient guidance from among some of the most talented (and kind) winemakers in the industry.

My writing has taken a hit as a result (I do still have my day job, after all) but hopefully I’ll have some drinkable wine to show for it. (In the meantime, all vineyard updates are on Instagram @thirdplacewine.) I’ll be back to writing more frequently when the wine is safely “barreled down”.

Ultimately, the most rewarding moments along the way have been around sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm—organizing trips and tastings with friends, sharing a recent discovery with others that I think they will love, and spending time together. This sense of community and curiosity underpin Third Place Wine®.

I don’t know how Third Place Wine® will evolve exactly, though I have plenty of ideas. What I can say is that I intend to create a global third place for the wine-curious, where we can learn more, drink better, and feel confident to follow our curiosity. Where we can be serious about wine, but not take ourselves seriously. I would love to hear your feedback as things evolve.

That’s all for now! Don’t forget to join me and subscribe:

Where else can I find you?

Follow for more wine goodness on Instagram @thirdplacewine.

I want to write, too. What do you use?

I write on Beehiiv, and you can too. Lots of good stuff packed into one platform, and the team is constantly shipping.

If you want to set up an account or transfer your content over, click here.