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Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 5:29:43 PM

jeamland

Posts: 9
Joined: 9/12/2012
Status: offline

Hello!

After a few years of using different mechanisms I've switched whole-heartedly over to CT and I'm really enjoying it (and now that I've got almost 500 bottles with those custom labels on them I can't see leaving :)

Anyways, while doing some data entry (it's a long story, but I have some very "odd" bottles) I noticed something that was driving my OCD around the bend (I'll freely admit that I may just have to live with it: that's just how OCD works :)

Example: https://www.cellartracker.com/new/wine.asp?iWine=1428165

If the winery name is "Something Vineyards" why would we put "Something Vineyards" as the vineyard name? Isn't that redundant?

I mean, I know that this specific wine came from that specific vineyard and I'm glad to see the info on other wines, but when it's the same winery I find the name looks ridiculous and the information is a bit redundant.

I saw this on several wines and I was wondering if this is just a personal style choice (with which I disagree!) or if there was a reason for it. Would I be out of line to request a change to remove the redundant info?

Thanks!

PS: CT ROCKS!

Post #: 1

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 6:17:33 PM

ChrisinCowiche

Posts: 7845
Joined: 12/16/2009
From: Cowiche, WA
Status: offline

Hi jeamland, welcome to forums.

I agree sometimes the word AAAA vineyard is redundant when naming the vineyard, and that be another project to consolidate vineyard names and remove the word "vineyard". But even though the winery name may be AAAA Vineyards, I think listing the specific vineyard for the wine is very useful, and sometimes neccesary. Many wineries I'm familiar with use a wide range of vineyards, sometimes their own included, so listing their own vineyard distinguished those wines from others that might be sourced elsewhere.

I'm not sure I'm exactly addressing your issue, but that's my take on it.

Welcome again.

< Message edited by ChrisinSunnyside -- 9/12/2012 6:18:11 PM >

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Post #: 2

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 6:29:18 PM

champagneinhand

Posts: 10282
Joined: 5/30/2011
From: Upstate New York, California born.
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ChrisinSunnyside

Hi jeamland, welcome to forums.

I agree sometimes the word AAAA vineyard is redundant when naming the vineyard, and that be another project to consolidate vineyard names and remove the word "vineyard". But even though the winery name may be AAAA Vineyards, I think listing the specific vineyard for the wine is very useful, and sometimes neccesary. Many wineries I'm familiar with use a wide range of vineyards, sometimes their own included, so listing their own vineyard distinguished those wines from others that might be sourced elsewhere.

I'm not sure I'm exactly addressing your issue, but that's my take on it.

Welcome again.

+1 one the welcoming. Vineyards can be quite confusing especially in the new world, where some vineyards are so big and sourced out in blocks to many a winemaker. It's a bit easier if you have walked through a few or can use google earth to get a satellite view of what the label is actually referring to. Alsace and champagne have very specific vineyards, but the extra price makes one understand why they put the name on the label. It a terroir thing. I think the wines from burgundy, red or white are the easiest ways to figure the whole terroir thing out. Don't worry about the OCD thing as many of us are anal retentive and are adults with ADD.

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Post #: 3

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 6:39:22 PM

Posts: 14826
Joined: 11/12/2011
From: Wandering between Coastal SC and South FL
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeamland

Hello!

After a few years of using different mechanisms I've switched whole-heartedly over to CT and I'm really enjoying it (and now that I've got almost 500 bottles with those custom labels on them I can't see leaving :)

Anyways, while doing some data entry (it's a long story, but I have some very "odd" bottles) I noticed something that was driving my OCD around the bend (I'll freely admit that I may just have to live with it: that's just how OCD works :)

Thanks!

PS: CT ROCKS!

Welcome to the forum but CDO rather than OCD please (it should be alphabetized)

As for the other, just go with it!
Please post your location in your profile so champagneinhand and I can "inspect" your collection

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(in reply to jeamland)

Post #: 4

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 6:58:56 PM

petitblanc

Posts: 1978
Joined: 2/20/2007
From: Madison, WI
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeamland

If the winery name is "Something Vineyards" why would we put "Something Vineyards" as the vineyard name?

Simple: Because any idiot who has internet access can create wines in the CT database.

Actually, that's not totally fair because I admit the few wines I've added to the database were a little challenging for me even with some wine knowledge and some computer savvy, and I'm not 100% confident I did it the way I really should have.

All of the CT users I've met are responsible people who care enough about this community to put a little effort into creating wines "properly." But there are obviously some folks who either don't care or don't understand.

This point was recently touched on in a different thread. I'm sure, at some point down the road after other priorities have been addressed, Eric or Andrew or one of these clever guys will change the wine edit/create functionality to make it less prone to non-standard or careless entries.

(One small idea: since the duplicate producer exercise has driven home to me the value of label photos, perhaps a clear label photo should be required when creating a new wine -- it would make it a lot easier to clear up confusions or fix errors later.)

Until that time, I'm happy to live with these little things. As I've said before, the most wonderful thing about CT is also the most maddening thing about CT: anyone can use it

< Message edited by petitblanc -- 9/12/2012 7:15:56 PM >

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Post #: 5

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 10:30:07 PM

jeamland

Posts: 9
Joined: 9/12/2012
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quote:

ORIGINAL: champagneinhand
Vineyards can be quite confusing especially in the new world, where some vineyards are so big and sourced out in blocks to many a winemaker. It's a bit easier if you have walked through a few or can use google earth to get a satellite view of what the label is actually referring to. Alsace and champagne have very specific vineyards, but the extra price makes one understand why they put the name on the label. It a terroir thing. I think the wines from burgundy, red or white are the easiest ways to figure the whole terroir thing out. Don't worry about the OCD thing as many of us are anal retentive and are adults with ADD.

OK, perhaps I should narrow it down then:

If (and only if) the value that's in the Vineyard field matches (exactly) the value that's in the Winery field, then the value in the Vineyard field is redundant and drives me crazy.

I'm not talking about "oh, I don't need to know the vineyard" and definitely, sometimes it's important.

But I completely disagree that the vineyard is adding any value whatsoever for a wine that comes out named "2009 Jefferson Vineyards Meritage Jefferson Vineyards"

The history of the Jefferson vineyards at Monticello is fascinating and I find it truly amazing at how good some of their wine is, but the repetition looks downright silly :)

As opposed to, say, "2008 Eberle Barbera Steinbeck 46% - Kokopelli 33% - Christian-Lazo 21%" which is really useful, particularly when the winemaker adjusts the balance of those vineyards every year.....

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Post #: 6

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 10:31:21 PM

jeamland

Posts: 9
Joined: 9/12/2012
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: petitblanc

This point was recently touched on in a different thread. I'm sure, at some point down the road after other priorities have been addressed, Eric or Andrew or one of these clever guys will change the wine edit/create functionality to make it less prone to non-standard or careless entries.

Is there a place to post such examples for later cleanup? I wouldn't want some of the careless stuff to get lost when it eventually gets found :)

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Post #: 7

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 10:32:49 PM

jeamland

Posts: 9
Joined: 9/12/2012
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quote:

ORIGINAL: S1

Please post your location in your profile so champagneinhand and I can "inspect" your collection

I'm still new here: until I truly understand how the privacy settings work I hesitate to share my collection. My tasting notes or consumption, sure, but I don't want to upset certain people :)

On a VERY related note, I'm off to do some final preparation for http://www.sommelierchallenge.com/ :)

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Post #: 8

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 10:45:36 PM

Hollowine

Posts: 7251
Joined: 7/25/2008
From: Hood River, OR
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: petitblanc

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeamland

If the winery name is "Something Vineyards" why would we put "Something Vineyards" as the vineyard name?

Simple: Because any idiot who has internet access can create wines in the CT database.

Actually, that's not totally fair because I admit the few wines I've added to the database were a little challenging for me even with some wine knowledge and some computer savvy, and I'm not 100% confident I did it the way I really should have.

All of the CT users I've met are responsible people who care enough about this community to put a little effort into creating wines "properly." But there are obviously some folks who either don't care or don't understand.

Yes, the German Producers. You think entering a US Label is hard, just try entering new wines from the 70's that are never before tracked German Rieslings...

(in reply to petitblanc)

Post #: 9

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 10:48:39 PM

Hollowine

Posts: 7251
Joined: 7/25/2008
From: Hood River, OR
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeamland

quote:

ORIGINAL: S1

Please post your location in your profile so champagneinhand and I can "inspect" your collection

I'm still new here: until I truly understand how the privacy settings work I hesitate to share my collection. My tasting notes or consumption, sure, but I don't want to upset certain people :)

On a VERY related note, I'm off to do some final preparation for http://www.sommelierchallenge.com/ :)

Welcome!

Couple options...most people only share with registered CT users (moderate security) which keeps lookey-loo's out. Another option would be to only share with Cellar Buddies (High Security) which keeps it to those you know and trust. No right or wrong choice, do what is comfortable.

(in reply to jeamland)

Post #: 10

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/12/2012 11:34:08 PM

MindMuse

Posts: 4327
Joined: 5/20/2009
From: Talking Rock, Georgia
Status: offline

jeamland,

Welcome. Thanks for posting. Thanks for being constitutionally disposed to even care about such stuff.

Our Dear Leader Eric, who is surprisingly accessible and not-so-surprisingly an expert at this, is always a good resource in such matters. But of course many others here are at least partially ept as well, so your inquiry to this venue is entirely appropriate.

-> Yes, I suspect the the redundancy for Jefferson Vineyards is just from a less experienced or less careful creator of a new wine.

Here's what I notice from Jefferson Vineyards' own site: http://jeffersonvineyards.com/vineyard
I.e., they have four discrete vineyards, one of which is noted as Pinot Gris. Without further detail provided by them here, my guess is that a Bordeaux blend sources from more than one vineyard from their estate. And you might actually want to look at the bottle to see if it says "Estate", which would dictate it was all their own vineyards' fruit, though it could be so even if they did not use the term.

If it is indeed the case that they blend from multiple named vineyards, then that field in CT should not be populated.

If it were me, and I were OCD about wine precision, (And just to be clear, you do understand that I am not publicly admitting that I hold any degree of OCD about such a thing, right?) I would just shoot an email with a little clarification inquiry to the producer, who doubtless would be both stunned and thrilled that anyone would care a whit about such a thing. And even though I might have already researched to determine that the Monticello AVA was indeed their legitimate and correct appellation to attach to this wine (not that I am saying I have done any such thing; nor to deny that I might have done so), I would probably just ask them that to say I wanted to be certain about that as well, even if I was already certain, so that they would know I'm not just some guy who just fell off the wine grape truck (when in fact, that may have been years ago).

I hope you are able to sleep over this issue better than I am....

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Post #: 11

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/13/2012 4:11:00 AM

wadcorp

Posts: 9332
Joined: 10/29/2008
From: Kansas City, MO
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quote:

ORIGINAL: champagneinhand

Don't worry about the OCD thing as many of us are anal retentive and are adults with ADD.

Isn't "anal-retentive" hyphenated?

.

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Post #: 12

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/13/2012 9:26:39 AM

BobMilton

Posts: 2877
Joined: 1/29/2010
From: Newbury Park, CA
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For me, I use the vineyard field only if the vineyard is separately stated on the label. Haven't run across a case where it exactly matched the winery name, but those cases should be looked at closely. Perhaps the winery is OCD about getting their name in front of people?

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Post #: 13

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/13/2012 12:09:53 PM

andrew

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Joined: 2/20/2005
Status: offline

This is a continual game of whack-a-mole for us. The short answer is that we mostly don't care either way as long as it doesn't cause there to be parallel entries of the same wine. Adding 'Estate' as the vineyard gets even worse and we do consider that redundant for the cases (there are a lot) where *all* the winery's wines are estate-grown.

Our main principle is that the display should match the label as much as possible. We deviate from that were duplication and confusion are likely to occur. It gets complicated where a winery uses the vineyard name like a brand name (eg not appending vineyard on it) and we end up with duplications.

I wish we had better answers for you. This is an issue we work on continually and think about as much. One of the goals, as I have said before, is with the new Cellartracker interface that we guide users to entering things correctly or to pick the correct entries.

Thanks,

A.

PS - And don't get me started on "ranch."

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Post #: 14

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/13/2012 1:21:53 PM

ethos

Posts: 263
Joined: 7/7/2010
From: South Riding, Va
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quote:

ORIGINAL: petitblanc
(One small idea: since the duplicate producer exercise has driven home to me the value of label photos, perhaps a clear label photo should be required when creating a new wine -- it would make it a lot easier to clear up confusions or fix errors later.)

very true. a decent quality image of the label can clear up so much.

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Post #: 15

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/13/2012 1:41:30 PM

champagneinhand

Posts: 10282
Joined: 5/30/2011
From: Upstate New York, California born.
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quote:

ORIGINAL: wadcorp

quote:

ORIGINAL: champagneinhand

Don't worry about the OCD thing as many of us are anal retentive and are adults with ADD.

Isn't "anal-retentive" hyphenated?

.

, I fall into the other group. I am the worst about checking my spelling and grammar. Especially since the right hand goes so much faster than the left.

_____________________________

As I age my finger tips seem to be bigger, my iOS keyboard seems to be less kind, and my need for wearing reading glasses has never been greater. I hope you are forgiving and can read between my lines.

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Post #: 16

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/16/2012 7:27:50 PM

jeamland

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Joined: 9/12/2012
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quote:

ORIGINAL: andrew

This is a continual game of whack-a-mole for us. The short answer is that we mostly don't care either way as long as it doesn't cause there to be parallel entries of the same wine. Adding 'Estate' as the vineyard gets even worse and we do consider that redundant for the cases (there are a lot) where *all* the winery's wines are estate-grown.

I work on several wine competitions and "Estate" is the worst: some wineries are even putting "Estate Bottled" now. That's just one step too far from my perspective, but I don't work in marketing at a winery so I can't judge the pressure they're under (even if it drives me crazy :)

quote:

Our main principle is that the display should match the label as much as possible. We deviate from that were duplication and confusion are likely to occur. It gets complicated where a winery uses the vineyard name like a brand name (eg not appending vineyard on it) and we end up with duplications.

I wish we had better answers for you. This is an issue we work on continually and think about as much. One of the goals, as I have said before, is with the new Cellartracker interface that we guide users to entering things correctly or to pick the correct entries.

It sounds more or less like what I expected. I work on several wine competitions and we have to be very very picky about labels because it wouldn't be good to have a winery claim that their "2008 Cabernet Sauvignon" was best of show when in fact it was the "2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve - Block 54 of John Doe Vineyard".

Several people mentioned label pictures. I've wanted to take pictures of all the wine entered at the competitions for a while, but I can't find an efficient way to do it (not just take the pictures, but put them onto the website, etc.)

quote:

PS - And don't get me started on "ranch."

What, like Hidden Valley? Do we have an entry for that in here too?

:)

/me ducks

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Post #: 17

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/16/2012 9:03:58 PM

champagneinhand

Posts: 10282
Joined: 5/30/2011
From: Upstate New York, California born.
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On the thread BirdsEye view of the vineyards via satellite shows you the topography of said vineyards if you like looking at this in a more 2D perspective.

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As I age my finger tips seem to be bigger, my iOS keyboard seems to be less kind, and my need for wearing reading glasses has never been greater. I hope you are forgiving and can read between my lines.

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Post #: 18

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/16/2012 10:09:30 PM

Old Doug

Posts: 8279
Joined: 5/12/2011
From: Atlanta, Georgia, US
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeamland

Anyways, while doing some data entry (it's a long story, but I have some very "odd" bottles) I noticed something that was driving my OCD around the bend (I'll freely admit that I may just have to live with it: that's just how OCD works :)

Welcome, Jeamland!

I know exactly what you mean, and the paltry few bottles I've added to the database had a couple truly maddening instances for me. I want the description to "look right" as well as fit the CellarTracker format and to fit in with overall accepted ways of doing it.

There was one wine that I finally got in, to the best of my abilities, and at that point I had to drink a couple other bottles just to calm me nerves.

Old Codger Doug

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Post #: 19

RE: Question about vineyards - 9/18/2012 4:34:35 AM

Pontac

Posts: 1143
Joined: 8/3/2006
From: London, UK
Status: offline

According to the Jefferson Vineyards site
The grapes are grown here on our property and in select sites across the Commonwealth

and on CT we have
Jefferson Vineyards Meritage Jefferson Vineyards (USA, Virginia, Central Region, Monticello)
and
Jefferson Vineyards Meritage Jefferson Vineyards (USA, Virginia, Shenandoah Valley)

And on the site they show an aerial view of their own 4 vineyards with indvidual names (Upper, Apple & Church plus Pinot Gris in Lower) and all by the winery, so the Shenandoah designation wine (if correct) seems from bought in grapes.

Therefore it seems to me that Jefferson Vineyards is not appropriate for a vineyard designation.

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Post #: 20