Spiffy new update with lots of great content

  Speaking of really great content...

I’ve been accumulating a big list of things I want to blog about, from the great trip to the EWBC, to some outstanding recent tastings, to sharing some of the Able Grape survey results, and every day for the past couple of weeks I’ve promised myself “tonight I’m going to sit down and do some serious blogging.” I’ve even partially written a few posts. But every evening, some other task has reared its ugly head, and I’ve yet to complete any of the posts that have been running around in my head. So I wanted to dash off a brief “update” post, while I make time for more in-depth ones, to come in the next few days.

First, I wanted to thank everyone that participated in our recent survey. I really, really appreciate your taking the time to let me know what you need, search-wise. I plan to post some preliminary results in the coming days, just to share some statistics about our user community. Lots of people have since said they’d like to have done the survey. I’ll probably re-open it, though not as a contest, so that I can continue to track feedback from anyone who’d like to contribute.

Second, I wanted to post a brief “blurb” about today’s database update, along with the usual smattering of things to try. We’re up to 38,578 sites, with more than 15 million pages of content. There are dozens of new sources, and few hundred thousand new pages. Here’s a random sample:

• Tens of thousands of new pages from top publications, from the UK’s Guardian, who recently redesigned their web site, to the Wall Street Journal, Ireland’s Sunday Tribune, the UK’s Quaffers Offers, Italy’s La Stampa and Spain’s TodoVino, among others.
• More sites of industry trade shows and conferences: SIVAL, ENOMAQ, and In Vino Analytica Scientia (thanks to Ronald Binati for these suggestions) or the conference of the Academy of Wine Business Research.
• Lots of new blogs, from Riccardo Milan’s Allappante to Stefano Bonilli’s recently-moved Papero Giallo, to Silvana Sarti’s uvAromatica, Charles Scicolone’s blog, Kirstin Jackson-Ellis’s Vin de la Table, Andrzeja Daszkiewicza’s Winogranie, or the blog of the fine folks at Adegga.
• More producers, from Champagne Guy Larmandier to Quevedo Port to Luchsinger Vineyards or the Monferrato’s tiny Cascina Alberta.
• More organizations, from the Slow Food chapters of Torino and Gavi to the newly-formed Federazione Italiana Vignaioli Indipendenti.
• More resources about saké, from organizations to press, suggestions courtesy of Richard at A Passionate Foodie.
• More academic resources, from great wine articles about wine and globalization from the web journal the Anthropology of Food (suggestion courtesy of Rachel Black) to more coverage of Larry Lockshin’s wine business research to the Centro de Documentación del Vino, sponsored by Dinastía Vivanco, which is building a repository of historical documents about Rioja.
• It looks like the Conseil des Vins du Médoc has fixed their new website, so now results for for appellations like St.-Estèphe or Listrac or producers from Château Palmer to de Pez truly rock. Check out the results, and look for the great content from the site medoc-bordeaux.com (“and none of this content is in Google!,” he added, with a wicked grin).

Well, that’s more than enough. It just scratches the surface of all the changes, but hopefully gives you some fun things to explore. As always, let me know if you have suggestions, or if there’s anything I’ve missed. Happy searching!