Re: A plea to the Symingtons
Posted: 15:59 Sat 27 Jul 2013
OK, it was forgotten. I’m not paid to do these things.
Meanwhile, I’m going to re-awaken this website-grump rant. There has been the most important declaration in more than a decade, and perhaps in several. Did the webmasters notice?
Commendations
â—Š The Symingtons’ TheVintagePortSite.com/view.php?id=14658 leads to lots of juicy details. It is excellent. But also see the Hall of Shame.
â—Š Niepoort has an easily findable page on the most recent vintage.
â—Š QuevedoPortWine.com discusses the ’11 declaration.
â—Š As does churchills-port.com.
â—Š And QuintaDoCrasto.pt.
â—Š The Taylor-Fladgate Partnership coped (Croft, Fonseca, Taylor, and Vargellas Vinha Velha). No Skeffington though.
◊ The webmaster of Quinta do Vale Meão has been paying attention.
â—Š QuintaDaRomaneira.pt could have given the declaration more prominence, but the news is findable. And hurray it has facts: ‟Touriga Nacional (80%), Touriga Francesa (15%) and Tinto Cão (5%)”.
â—Š Sogrape knows about its ’11 declaration, in English and Portuguese.
Hall of Shame
• Rozès declared three different 2011s: regular, Pego, and Grifo. And its website’s front page proudly declares 2008.
• Quinta do Tedo made its website after ’07 was declared, and hasn’t updated since.
• Symington.com/section.php?id=339’s most recent news is in October 2012. [Edit on 20 Aug: this page has been back-filled with content. Perhaps somebody reads this forum.]
• QuintaDoVesuvio.com/our_wines.asp ends in 2006. Really, it does. Presumably they sold the estate back to Dona Antonia, who still doesn’t approve of websites. If the SFE and single-brand websites are retired, have them forward to TheVintagePortSite content, rather than leaving the reader stranded.
• Quinta do Noval has a picture of the ’08 bottle, and not a mention of anything more recent.
• Sogevinus.com/kopke/ and KopkePort.com are content-free Flash disaster zones. We have a right to know how sadistically the webmaster is to be punished.
• RamosPinto.com: annoying music, empty news archive. Really.
• QuintaDoPortal.com 2011? Don’t be silly we never declare years ending in a ‘1’.
• Quinta Vale D. Maria? You know the answer.
• J H Andresen forgot about the web after declaring 2003.
• RealCompanhiaVelha.pt mentions Royal Oporto 2007, which leads to a one-page PDF with a small box of information. Better than nothing. But more and updated every year would be better still.
• DonaMatilde.pt: ‟Dona Matilde’s range of Ports includes a Colheita 2001 and Vintage 2007 and 2009.”
• Senhora do Convento: ‟Available years: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2009”. Allow me to remind you that you are trying to sell bottles of the ’11. They are meant to pay, in part, the bills. Why not be bold, extremely bold, and allow potential customers to know what you have for sale. Wicked capitalism, I know, and doubtless the enslavement of the working man, etc, etc, but useful for paying the salary of the aforementioned working man.
• BaraoDeVilar.com is a page saying ‟This account is suspended” / ‟Esta conta está suspensa”. Forgetting to update your website is bad; forgetting to pay the hosting company is impressively dim-witted.
• I have more sympathy with Wine and Soul, as they haven’t made a website. They didn’t make and forget, they made the correct decision that a website wouldn’t be updated and so would look rubbish, and hence didn’t make. I have some sympathy with that realism.
The IVDP
The IVDP is a bureaucracy needing a job to do in which it can’t do much harm. Could the IVDP help with this? (The Game: IVDP knows of every declaration. Create and maintain a website with one page per declaration: number bottles, ABV, baumé, other stats, source quintas if specified, source varietals if known, declaring company, name of wine, contact info for importers into main markets. The IVDP is not to prohibit the producers doing their own things; not to require that the IVDP do things on their behalf that would fail the ‘no harm’ desideratum. IVDP acts in addition to whatever the producers and importers want to do. No new rules; no new prohibitions. Or the IVDP will be seeing me do you really really want that?)
Meanwhile, I’m going to re-awaken this website-grump rant. There has been the most important declaration in more than a decade, and perhaps in several. Did the webmasters notice?
Commendations
â—Š The Symingtons’ TheVintagePortSite.com/view.php?id=14658 leads to lots of juicy details. It is excellent. But also see the Hall of Shame.
â—Š Niepoort has an easily findable page on the most recent vintage.
â—Š QuevedoPortWine.com discusses the ’11 declaration.
â—Š As does churchills-port.com.
â—Š And QuintaDoCrasto.pt.
â—Š The Taylor-Fladgate Partnership coped (Croft, Fonseca, Taylor, and Vargellas Vinha Velha). No Skeffington though.
◊ The webmaster of Quinta do Vale Meão has been paying attention.
â—Š QuintaDaRomaneira.pt could have given the declaration more prominence, but the news is findable. And hurray it has facts: ‟Touriga Nacional (80%), Touriga Francesa (15%) and Tinto Cão (5%)”.
â—Š Sogrape knows about its ’11 declaration, in English and Portuguese.
Hall of Shame
• Rozès declared three different 2011s: regular, Pego, and Grifo. And its website’s front page proudly declares 2008.
• Quinta do Tedo made its website after ’07 was declared, and hasn’t updated since.
• Symington.com/section.php?id=339’s most recent news is in October 2012. [Edit on 20 Aug: this page has been back-filled with content. Perhaps somebody reads this forum.]
• QuintaDoVesuvio.com/our_wines.asp ends in 2006. Really, it does. Presumably they sold the estate back to Dona Antonia, who still doesn’t approve of websites. If the SFE and single-brand websites are retired, have them forward to TheVintagePortSite content, rather than leaving the reader stranded.
• Quinta do Noval has a picture of the ’08 bottle, and not a mention of anything more recent.
• Sogevinus.com/kopke/ and KopkePort.com are content-free Flash disaster zones. We have a right to know how sadistically the webmaster is to be punished.
• RamosPinto.com: annoying music, empty news archive. Really.
• QuintaDoPortal.com 2011? Don’t be silly we never declare years ending in a ‘1’.
• Quinta Vale D. Maria? You know the answer.
• J H Andresen forgot about the web after declaring 2003.
• RealCompanhiaVelha.pt mentions Royal Oporto 2007, which leads to a one-page PDF with a small box of information. Better than nothing. But more and updated every year would be better still.
• DonaMatilde.pt: ‟Dona Matilde’s range of Ports includes a Colheita 2001 and Vintage 2007 and 2009.”
• Senhora do Convento: ‟Available years: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2009”. Allow me to remind you that you are trying to sell bottles of the ’11. They are meant to pay, in part, the bills. Why not be bold, extremely bold, and allow potential customers to know what you have for sale. Wicked capitalism, I know, and doubtless the enslavement of the working man, etc, etc, but useful for paying the salary of the aforementioned working man.
• BaraoDeVilar.com is a page saying ‟This account is suspended” / ‟Esta conta está suspensa”. Forgetting to update your website is bad; forgetting to pay the hosting company is impressively dim-witted.
• I have more sympathy with Wine and Soul, as they haven’t made a website. They didn’t make and forget, they made the correct decision that a website wouldn’t be updated and so would look rubbish, and hence didn’t make. I have some sympathy with that realism.
The IVDP
The IVDP is a bureaucracy needing a job to do in which it can’t do much harm. Could the IVDP help with this? (The Game: IVDP knows of every declaration. Create and maintain a website with one page per declaration: number bottles, ABV, baumé, other stats, source quintas if specified, source varietals if known, declaring company, name of wine, contact info for importers into main markets. The IVDP is not to prohibit the producers doing their own things; not to require that the IVDP do things on their behalf that would fail the ‘no harm’ desideratum. IVDP acts in addition to whatever the producers and importers want to do. No new rules; no new prohibitions. Or the IVDP will be seeing me do you really really want that?)
, but not on Sandeman’s over-scripted under-contented website. Start again.