Joel Devenish
The Suitcase Sommelier. Perth born, internationally bred.
First and foremost, Joel is a wine lover and enthusiast. When he is not trying to expand your wine vocabulary, or pulling a Pinot out of the bag when everyone else called Shiraz, Joel works with a number of domestic and international wine importers.
A self-confessed culture-seeker, Joel spent more than eight years living and working abroad in the UK and Argentina. The travel bug bit hard on this Perth native, who explored the wine regions of Europe, the USA and South America before returning home to raise a family with his wife Sarah in 2013.
He has worked alongside some of Perth's premium hospitality venues and is WSET-qualified, which means his wine training is formal as well as earned over a lot of dinners.
How the lessons are made
Every lesson starts as a plain-English draft built around one useful idea, the kind of thing that actually helps when you are holding a wine list or standing in a bottle shop. Joel then reviews it for accuracy and pushes back on anything that sounds too neat to be true. The aim is wine that is simple to use without being wrong, so we favour clear rules over jargon, and we say so plainly in the places where the honest answer is "it depends".
What this is, and what it isn't
Off to Grape Places is a free wine-education project. It exists to give you confidence quickly: enough to order, host, choose a bottle and travel without feeling exposed. It is not a certification, a paid course, or a wine shop. There is no exam and no certificate. If you want to go deeper, the app keeps going, but the goal is always usefulness over completeness.
A note on travel links
Some of the region guides include affiliate links to tours and experiences. If you book through one, we may earn a small commission, and the price you pay never changes. We only include them where they genuinely belong in the guide, and you will always see a clear note where they appear.
Get in touch
offtograpeplaces@gmail.com
0412 762 668