Real Simple Magazine

The mile-long shelves at your local wine shop can be intimidating, especially if you've invited a connoisseur to your dinner party. Fruit Forward selects two bottles from new wine regions and small wineries and mails them to you each month. Included with the deliveries are suggestions for food-and-wine pairings and useful tasting notes for the wine novice. Though the default shipment is one bottle of red and one of white, you can choose to receive two reds or two whites, if you prefer.

RS received: A 2002 Cheyanna Zinfandel and a 2003 Raywood Vineyards Chardonnay.

Budget Living Magazine

What began as a 30-or-so member club has since grown to 300 devotees. And along the way, by offering small vintners' wares on the Web, (Fruit Forward) has aided winemakers who couldn't find wide distribution.

Because it's not just about selling. With each month's shipment, members receive jargon-free tasting notes with the wines' histories and ideas for food pairings. Next up: Fruit Forward parties meant to hawk wine a la Tupperware and educate budding oenophiles. Ambitious, but in the end, Charles says, "we're really just trying to take the snootiness out of wine." We'll drink to that! - Mark J. Miller