A Pooch with Your Pinot?

While many choose to pair cheese with their wine, some prefer fancier or more obscure pairings. Carivintas Winery, however, believes that shelter dogs go best with their wines. Before you call the ASPCA, please note that the winery donated over $40,000 to nationally-acclaimed nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society — and that was just one of the winery’s many charitable contributions. In fact, Carivintas’ founders Paul Ramos and Fleet Hamilton started the business with a charitable purpose.

“As a normal individual, you may be able to give 50 bucks here, 100 bucks there. You help out a little bit, maybe do a little volunteer time,” explained Ramos. “We wanted to find a way to make more money [for charities], so we basically incorporated raising nonprofit funds into our business model.”

The winery sources fruit from Temecula up to Sonoma, creating a large variety of wines that possess distinct labels, each displaying an animal-in-need’s photo. The animal’s story covers the back of the label, sharing delightfully detailed anecdotes and information about the organization that the bottle of wine benefits.