Comments on: New grower site good, but needs work

By: Dylan

Dylan — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:22:24 +0000

I looked over the site. I like the interactive map, but I think they should put the “select a region” tabs at the top, rather than stowed away at the bottom. While visually nice, the map doesn’t necessarily allow complete ease of navigation. And yes, I agree a blog is critical in a redesign.

By: steve

steve — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:08:10 +0000

Thomas, I may have to start cracking down on that kind of stuff. I just don’t want anyone to accuse me of censorship.

By: Morton Leslie

Morton Leslie — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:01:18 +0000

The site made me smile. It represents a view on the world from the standpoint of large often corporate growers who deliver grapes to many wineries. Their view of winemaking hasn’t changed much in 40 years. They grow Zins, Thompsons, Petty Sarahs, and Colombards certainly none of them fancy pants grapes. Albar-who?

An subtle example. Read the feature..What’s Happening in California’s
Vineyards Now?” In their view it is the grower who best knows when to pick the vineyard “California growers taste the grapes and test their sugar and acid levels frequently, sometimes even daily, to determine the best time to pluck the ripe grapes from the vine.” Then in CAWG’s view of the world once the grower has chosen the perfect harvest date, the grapes are picked and turned over to the winemaker. “once the grapes are transported to the wineries, the winemakers set to work to bring out all of the dimensions and complexities of the grape in the final bottle of wine. ”

In CAWG’s view the winemaker with all his fancy pants ideas never sets foot into the vineyard.

Largely their view is imaginary. I have never know a non-winery owning CAWG grower to test for acid, let alone know how to take a representative berry sample, or for that matter, pick for a reason other than what makes them the most money within their grape contract.

By: Thomas Pellechia

Thomas Pellechia — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:37:23 +0000

Two plugs in a row.

I heard there’s a job where you can get paid to drop URLS and names on other people’s blog/sites. You can find out about it here: http://www.mortonolken.com

By: Donnie

Donnie — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:48:06 +0000

Steve, I agree with the idea for adding a glossary. Better yet, I think that wine websites in general need to speak more English (or whatever language they’re written in), rather than becoming so bogged down in technical growing or tasting terms. It’s not very user-friendly.

A perfect example of a user-friendly site is Chris Riccobono’s new v-blog, where he reviews wines on video for very moderately priced wines. He’s very laid back and uses terms we can all understand.

I highly recommend you check it out (http://www. pardonthatvine.com.

Thanks, Donnie