Hi,

I am trying to get a sample of opinions of people who really care about
wine, rather than a general sample of the whole Internet. Wine
lovers/afficionados (or even self-proclaimed geeks) are a different breed
from the average web surfer, I think. If any of you would be kind enough
to tell me a little about what you love and/or hate about wine web sites,
I'd much appreciate it. There are currently over 22,000 domain names that
contain "wine".

1) What are you looking for on the web regarding your wine interest?
Tasting notes, food matches, price info, buying, discussions, events,
or what else? Do you go to producers' (ex. French chateaux) sites or
general interest sites better to find what you seek?

2) Do you like Flash used as an intro or whole Flash sites? Any
technologies or techniques you like or don't like?

3) Do you have any suggestions about how wine sites should use navigation
or present their content?

4) Any exemplary sites you would recommend as exceptional?

Thanks in advance for any comments at all on the above questions or
anything else about wine-related web sites.

Salut/Hi Petits vers d'O,

le/on Sun, 22 Feb 2004 11:20:04 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

>1) What are you looking for on the web regarding your wine interest?
>Tasting notes, food matches, price info, buying, discussions, events,
>or what else? Do you go to producers' (ex. French chateaux) sites or
>general interest sites better to find what you seek?

I like to read informative sites, with the minimum of self aggrandisement
and a maximum of objectivity. If they're there to sell, then I expect the
prices to represent honest value for money. I've seen sites practising 400%
mark-ups, for example. If there ARE tasting notes then please let them be
sensible, rather the wilder flights of fancy of "entertainers" who have to
find ever more out of the way expressions to astonish. Food matches can be
interesting too. I have a great preference for producers' sites.

For a french language web site (yes, I got the pun in your pen name, and
adore Le Vin des Verdots made by David Fourtout, and also know the grape
variety), if there IS a translation into English let it be flawless. Some
mickey mouse translation made by a french webmaster who has been told by his
doting mother that his english is "just wonderful" is a positive turn off (I
should declare an interest as I translate french language web sites for wine
makers). Something like 80% of them (english translations) are so bad as to
make the web site a laughing stock.

>2) Do you like Flash used as an intro or whole Flash sites? Any
>technologies or techniques you like or don't like?

I abominate flash. It adds a HUGE overhead to little advantage. I want a web
site to give clear consistent link which all work, I don't want gimmick -
sound, video, ands other bandwidth gobblers. I link at 45kbd and pay for all
my on-line time, so keep the basic site small. No 2Mb pictures, no rotating
links showing "next". HTML will link perfectly well.

>3) Do you have any suggestions about how wine sites should use navigation
>or present their content?

I think there's some justification for using frames, as long as the overall
structure is kept on an "outside" frame, with the individual pages being
linkable via this frame. But in general, the simpler the navigation, the
easier it is to get around. The great problem for the typical webmaster, is
the temptation to stuff a web site with clever gimmicks to astonish the
client, just because it's possible, rather than to facilitate use, minimise
download time, or to clarify information. Avoid being clever, it doesn't
impress me.

VERY exceptionally, I'll blow my own trumpet. My web site, designed to sell
my B&B was written in HTML (not using dreamweaver etc) by me. I use neither
Java, Javascript, nor Flash, have no sound and use no clever techniques. Yet
over 70% of the guests who found my B&B via my website have commented in
glowing terms on its excellence and the ease of navigation.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

Excellent points, thanks Ian.

Of course as you have designed a site, your are disqualified

just kidding!

I was about to ask for wine-site suggestions also.

I used (or maintained or created) wine _newsgroups_ from the beginning
(early 1980s). The WWW-format wine sites are much more recent and I'm still
seeking interesting general ones. Some of them have an ahistorical tone,
created "way back in 2001" or touching on events "waaaaaayy back in 1995;"
some reflect implicit buy-in to one or another recent peculiar development
(mailing-list cult wines, numerical critics, white Zinfandel, etc.). I'm
looking for broader perspectives if possible.

I would appreciate suggestions of good general sites from knowledgeable
people and I am *not* in the business of setting up these sites myself.

Max Hauser


"Petits vers d'O" in news
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to get a sample of opinions of people who really care about
> wine, rather than a general sample of the whole Internet. Wine
> lovers/afficionados (or even self-proclaimed geeks) are a different breed
> from the average web surfer, I think.

Max Hauser wrote:

> I would appreciate suggestions of good general sites from knowledgeable
> people and I am *not* in the business of setting up these sites myself.

Max,
First off, thank you for bringing to my attention the existence of
net.wines! Although I've been using the *net since the mid-'70s, I didn't
discover Usenet newsgroups until fairly recently ('99). I wish that I'd found
net.wines back in its day and got the ball rolling sooner.

As for your question, the wine-related websites that I've bookmarked (ignoring
the retailers' sites that are specific to my area) a
http://www.winespectator.com <--- No endorsement offered here, but it does
come in handy at times
http://www.wine-searcher.com <---- Very useful for tracking
price/availability
http://www.stratsplace.com <---- Useful site from a former a.f.w.
contributor
http://www.wineloverspage.com <---- Robin Garr's very informative site
http://www.erobertparker.com <---- The name says it all. Houses Mark
Squires's BB

Most other wine resources I just turn up with Google. Given the ephemeral
nature of many websites, that's a better solution for me than bookmarking
something that I don't use very often.

HTH
Mark Lipton

Thanks Mark for your helpful, and very fast, suggestions. I also read
http://www.westcoastwine.net (located in Southern California, hence the
name), a diverse site that includes comments from California winemakers and
other professionals, and I keep planning to subscribe to www.burghound.com
after promising so to Mr Meadows, who is indeed knowledgeable about
Burgundies, and did graciously chair a tasting for some of us (even if we do
differ about Groffiers).


One of those short-term problems that cause long-term solutions led to this
current group having the name it has, but that was before the arrival of
many people now posting here, to whom "alt.food.wine" probably seems a
natural part of the Firmament. I was planning to post a related history
query soon. But while I've got you, Charles Wetherell's charter message for
net.wines in 1982 declared

> Subject matter for this group includes all topics covering alcoholic
> beverages, including wine, beer, hard liquor, wine making, beer making,
> and, if you prefer this group to net.cooks, recipes using alcohol.
> If there is enough traffic, we can, of course, create subgroups for
> particular topics. During the poll, I did receive a request that
> new recipes for obscure cocktails be limited; I suspect that there
> are not likely to be many such submissions anyway.

In late 1986 with a major revision of news software the "Great Renaming"
rechristened net.wines as rec.food.drink, following also advocacy of a
combined drinks newsgroup by home beer/wine-making enthusiasts. The main
problem for years on net.wines and rec.food.drink was periods of inactivity
or light traffic even by the standards at the time (newsgroups carried circa
100,000 articles annually in the middle 1980s). That is why I and Steve
Pope would seed these groups periodically to keep them on the active list.
That is why I fought off early suggestions to split up rec.food.drink, or to
turn it into a moderated group (1987 proposal held that adding a moderator,
even a very capable one like Brian Reid, would somehow raise the traffic.)
Gene Spafford in > and others supported my
arguments. That specific exchange is in the public archives, though such
archives from the late 1980s are thin for rec.food.drink and other
nontechnical newsgroups (I have some archives myself that include the
period).

rec.food.drink was the main early online forum for wine traffic, for years,
and came to thrive and to include postings from people with later careers in
wine. Proposals to split off the wine part of it were usually from people
annoyed by the "new recipes for obscure cocktails" (a prescient concern,
above); I too disliked them and the eternal newbie queries about what is a
multilayer pousse-café. (The obvious first entry for a rec.food.drink FAQ
list). (I did have fun with one query on absinthe about 1987.) However the
history and curse of newsgroups in the late 1980s and early 1990s was
constant proposals to split off and form new sub-groups to the proponent's
personal liking (often someone with little experience of the existing group,
or who vanished after the split -- I call them "divisor-newbies"). This was
a problem because the procedures placed much of the de-facto responsibility
for deciding the split into the hands of its advocate. I was away from
rec.food.drink when this "alt" newsgroup split off from it, and the archived
discussions around that split carry the familiar flavor of someone
frustrated with non-wine traffic, AND also impatient with the constraints on
new-group creation on the mainline (now "big-eight") newsgroups. There may
well have been enough wine traffic by then, or earlier, to justify a split.
I question only the impatient resort to the "alt" hierarchy. Had a little
more patience been invested at that time, I believe, many of you would have
known THIS group all along as rec.food.drink.wine, it would have had the
distribution advantages of the "rec" naming (people complained in the past
that they could not get this group because it of the "alt" naming), more
people would have had access to it sooner, and it would have been much
better archived as well. (Being not entirely new to newsgroups I would not
be surprised if such a thought strikes some as strange, the poetry of
"alt.food.wine" incontestable, etc. but there's my view .)

Max Hauser

"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Max Hauser wrote:
>
> > I would appreciate suggestions of good general sites from knowledgeable
> > people and I am *not* in the business of setting up these sites myself.
>
> Max,
> First off, thank you for bringing to my attention the existence of
> net.wines! Although I've been using the *net since the mid-'70s, I didn't
> discover Usenet newsgroups until fairly recently ('99). I wish that I'd
found
> net.wines back in its day and got the ball rolling sooner.
>
> As for your question, the wine-related websites that I've bookmarked
(ignoring
> the retailers' sites that are specific to my area) a
> http://www.winespectator.com <--- No endorsement offered here, but it
does
> come in handy at times
> http://www.wine-searcher.com <---- Very useful for tracking
> price/availability
> http://www.stratsplace.com <---- Useful site from a former a.f.w.
> contributor
> http://www.wineloverspage.com <---- Robin Garr's very informative site
> http://www.erobertparker.com <---- The name says it all. Houses Mark
> Squires's BB

-- whom I visited in 1996 (noch habe ich ihre Geschäftskarte!) -- bitte
verzeihen Sie mich indem ich ein passend Bild suchen. Wenn nichts im Web
ist, muß ich es e-mailen.

[I reminded Mr Pronay recently that I had been a subscriber to _Falstaff_
from California.]


Grüß Gott!

Petits vers d'O > wrote:

> Excellent points, thanks Ian.
>
> Of course as you have designed a site, your are disqualified
>
> just kidding!

Très cher petit verre d'eau,

I can only subscibe what Ian has said. 100 percent!

M.

Max Hauser wrote:

> Thanks Mark for your helpful, and very fast, suggestions. I also read
> http://www.westcoastwine.net (located in Southern California, hence the
> name), a diverse site that includes comments from California winemakers and
> other professionals, and I keep planning to subscribe to www.burghound.com
> after promising so to Mr Meadows, who is indeed knowledgeable about
> Burgundies, and did graciously chair a tasting for some of us (even if we do
> differ about Groffiers).

Yes, those are both interesting sites.

> In late 1986 with a major revision of news software the "Great Renaming"
> rechristened net.wines as rec.food.drink, following also advocacy of a
> combined drinks newsgroup by home beer/wine-making enthusiasts. The main
> problem for years on net.wines and rec.food.drink was periods of inactivity
> or light traffic even by the standards at the time (newsgroups carried circa
> 100,000 articles annually in the middle 1980s). That is why I and Steve
> Pope would seed these groups periodically to keep them on the active list.
> That is why I fought off early suggestions to split up rec.food.drink, or to
> turn it into a moderated group (1987 proposal held that adding a moderator,
> even a very capable one like Brian Reid, would somehow raise the traffic.)
> Gene Spafford in > and others supported my
> arguments. That specific exchange is in the public archives, though such
> archives from the late 1980s are thin for rec.food.drink and other
> nontechnical newsgroups (I have some archives myself that include the
> period).

Interesting history, Max. Spaf of course is a respected colleague of mine
here at Purdue, but has disavowed his early Usenet activities with the
now-famous signoff about the herd of performing elephants.

>
>
> I question only the impatient resort to the "alt" hierarchy. Had a little
> more patience been invested at that time, I believe, many of you would have
> known THIS group all along as rec.food.drink.wine, it would have had the
> distribution advantages of the "rec" naming (people complained in the past
> that they could not get this group because it of the "alt" naming), more
> people would have had access to it sooner, and it would have been much
> better archived as well. (Being not entirely new to newsgroups I would not
> be surprised if such a thought strikes some as strange, the poetry of
> "alt.food.wine" incontestable, etc. but there's my view .)

But now, with the popularity of the binary newsgroups in the alt hierarchy,
most news servers will carry some amount of alt.*. For instance, my news
servers both at work and home carry this group. Still, as an alt.* newsgroup
we certainly find ourselves in the Wild West of Usenet, but as you've no doubt
observed behavior here is remarkably tolerant and helpful, with a minimum of
the antics for which alt.* has rightfully achieved notoriety. [Totally OT: if
you haven't seen Microsoft's "Social Accounting Search Engine" website:
http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/ take a look -- very interesting overview
of Usenet activities]

Mark Lipton

Mark,

Obviously one's web surfing depends a lot on what wines you are interested
in. Further, you may not need to know much more about Bordeaux or Burgundy
(for example) if you've been drinking the best ones since the 70's. So
with those exceptions, are there producers' or chateaux sites you
particulary like or dislike?

Interesting, thanks!

Ian Hoare wrote:

> For a french language web site (yes, I got the pun in
> your pen name, and adore Le Vin des Verdots made by David
> Fourtout, and also know the grape variety), if there IS a
> translation into English let it be flawless. Some mickey
> mouse translation made by a french webmaster who has been
> told by his doting mother that his english is "just
> wonderful" is a positive turn off (I should declare an
> interest as I translate french language web sites for
> wine makers). Something like 80% of them (english
> translations) are so bad as to make the web site a
> laughing stock.

I agree! Italian web-sites selling wine often have terrible
english translations, and it sounds laughable, to be kind.

Vilco

> I agree! Italian web-sites selling wine often have terrible english
> translations, and it sounds laughable, to be kind.

While I too lament all those bogus web sites that begin
"Welcome IN our website!"

I must remember that about 0.1% of English speakers (or is that too
optimistic?) can write in a second language. In that respect, wine lovers
would have a much higher number of course, possible as high as 5%.

Salut/Hi Petits vers d'O,

le/on Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:24:17 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

>While I too lament all those bogus web sites that begin
>"Welcome IN our website!"

If only the errors ended there!

>I must remember that about 0.1% of English speakers (or is that too
>optimistic?) can write in a second language. In that respect, wine lovers
>would have a much higher number of course, possible as high as 5%.

It's all about your hopes and expectations for the web site. If it's there
to enhance the reputation of someone - winemaker, winery, wine sales outlet
or whatever, then it makes sense to me NOT to put any potential barriers in
their way. So if you want to encourage english speaking people
(exceptionally I am including Americans in this category) to read and enjoy
a french web site, then it makes sense to me that the site be either
_conceived_ in English or translated by a native English speaker with a deep
knowledge of wine. This avoids giving the "this is translated for the
benefit of you poor ignorant slobs who aren't blessed with the ability to
understand the language of Molière and Baudelaire" impression.

In general, it's safe to say that about as many english speakers (and here I
do NOT include Americans, for whom Spanish is more useful as a second
language) can write fluently in French as there are French speakers who
write fluently in English. I'd not be surprised if native english speakers
interested in wine were _more_ likely to get by in French, than vice versa.

However, in my opinion, designing any website, no matter what, is all about
having a clear idea of the overall structure, before you start writing any
HTML. The reader/browser should always feel welcome, should always feel that
you have left no turn unstoned (;-)) to help them navigate around the site,
and made all possible efforts to make their browsing experience as fruitful
as possible. ALL time spent waiting for code to load is (IMO) a REAL turn
off. When I first wrote my site, I was advised to remember those surfing at
14,400 bd using a laptop with a 640x480 resolution. I decided to create an
entire low res fast loading mirror site.

Nowadays, there is still a dichotomy between those accessing via broadband
at 128kbd up to 1024kbd (or whatever the speeds are nowadays) at a flat fee
and those using modems, paying for access and getting 28.8 kbd or 45kbd at
best. A web site should be usable by those with low speed access, without
them feeling penalised.

HTH.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website