Cool Projects

First fully-accessible winery in the U.S.

I led the effort to create the first wine experience in the United States that is accessible for sight- and hearing-impaired visitors.

Achieving this involved:

printed wine tasting note

Each wine poured at Valdemar Estates has a printed tasting note that uses icons and easy-to-understand descriptions of flavors and aromas. The tasting notes also have QR codes that link to video descriptions relating information via American Sign Language, captions, and dictation.

  • Consulting with a variety of hearing- and sight-impaired community members and advisers.

  • Placing QR codes throughout the building, which link to videos that relate information via American Sign Language, dictation, and text.

  • Creating more than 65 sign language videos that describe the facility and the wines.

  • Creating a website that conforms to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

  • Designing printed material set in a hyper-legible typeface designed for those with low vision.

  • Creating wine tasting notes that use icons and easy-to-understand descriptions of flavors and aromas.

  • Creating Braille wine and food menus.

David Brauhn