August 31, 2007

Drinking through a straw

posted by philip in Wine Industry, Wine

First it’s the screw cap, then box wine, now it’s wine in clear plastic bottles. As packaging progresses it may make the wine look, dare I say it… more common, but its generally cheaper, preserves the wine more efficiently and is kinder to the environment (either recyclable, or less heavy and so burns up less fuel while being shipped around the globe). Much of the innovation comes from down under, where the eco-minded Australians and New Zealanders drink 50% of their wine from boxes. Long shipping routes also force them into a more progressive mindset - abandoning natural cork from Portugual and looking for lighter packaging.

The latest is wine sold in tiny cardboard boxes with a straw - think of a child’s juice box. At the moment its being trialled in a few EU markets, so it remains to be seen if it will spread to the rest of the world. In the UK, bastion of the ‘liquid lunch’, the wine is being marketing for ‘drinking on the go’. I cant wait to see that same positioning used in the United States.

To make up for the inability to swirl one’s juice box of wine, the straw (and I’m not 100% sure of the visual here) has five holes so the wine gets sprayed into your mouth, releasing the full aroma. Drop us a line if you see any in your local store.

August 30, 2007

Snooth-Facebook application

posted by oliver in Website Updates, Snooth, Partnerships

Some of you may remember that our Snooth Facebook application was launched about a month ago. Back then, the functionality was pretty basic – you could search wines, read the reviews, see your Snooth friends and your recommendations, but not much beyond that…and Snooth is definitely about much more than that!

Well, we’ve been working hard on the application, and little by little have made improvements to it. You can now add new ratings and reviews for wines; the profile pane has gotten a slight facelift and also updates automatically whenever you add a new review – no more manual refreshing to have your latest tastings show up on your profile! We’re also trying to stay within ‘Facebook space’ whenever possible – links that used to point to the Snooth website now point to the corresponding place in the Facebook application, and we display users’ Facebook names within the Facebook application. (Note however, that we do not copy any information from Facebook into our own database. Your name will still only be stored in our database if you enter it through the Snooth website.)

If you’re a new Facebook application user, the process of adding the application is more streamlined – you no longer have to create a separate Snooth account to use the Facebook app, but instead are assigned an account automatically. This account allows you to interact with the Snooth community through the Facebook application without limitation, but only through Facebook. We are finishing up the tools to convert this provisional account to a full Snooth account (either by giving us a screenname, email address and password, or by providing the login information for an existing Snooth account that we then merge with the provisional account) – this should go live sometime today!

As always, please let us know what you think!

August 29, 2007

Why we have no friends

posted by philip in Snooth

Up until now, if you created an account on Snooth you’d be friended to Mark and I automatically. We did this so you’d be able to see the point of having friends on the site (nose through our ratings, see our recommendations and the like). With the launch of the GrapeVine combined with the rate at which new users are signing up, we realized that a consequence of what we were doing was flooding everyone else’s profiles with our profligate friending.

So, yesterday, we declared ‘friendship’ bankruptcy, and cleared our our entire list of friends. Don’t take it personally, and please do re-friend us if you like. We promise to accept it, and be nicer this time round.

August 28, 2007

Hearing it on the GrapeVine

posted by philip in Website Updates, Snooth

We’ve been waving our flag for social recommendations for some time now. Yesterday, we took a big step towards our goal with the new homepage design and the launch of the GrapeVine.

When you next log in you’ll see that the right hand side of the homepage now has a feed of all the activity that should be relevant to you. Wines you and your friends have rated, messages to and from your friends (yes thats right, messaging is finally upon us) and other relevant news (who your friends are friending, site developments and the like).

It’s now simple to keep track of what great wines your friends are drinking, its also easy to filter the results so you can focus on what you care about.

Take a look and let us know what you think.

Snooth GrapeVine

August 27, 2007

25 new partners for the week

posted by philip in Snooth, Partnerships

  • St. Helena Road Winery
  • LangeTwins Wine Estates
  • Callaway Vineyard and Winery
  • Dark Star Cellars
  • Lucas and Lewellen Vineyards
  • Chiarello Family Vineyards
  • Alisal Cellars
  • Whitehall Lane Winery
  • Thomas Fogarty Winery
  • Adelsheim Vineyard
  • Spencer Roloson Winery
  • Sonoma Wine Shop
  • Gallo Family Vineyards
  • Sunstone Vineyards and Winery
  • St. Supry Vineyards and Winery
  • D’Argenzio Winery
  • California Wine
  • Yangarra Estate Winery
  • Burgess Cellars
  • Northstar Winery
  • Andretti Winery
  • Bridlewood Winery
  • DeSante Wines
  • High View Vineyards
  • Clos Pepe Estate

Some other good stuff to announce this week, so stay tuned.

August 24, 2007

Snooth is hiring

posted by philip in Snooth

Today’s post is really an open call for a few things. First, Snooth is hiring! We’re looking for die hard fanatics to fill the following positions:

  • Sales and Marketing / Project Management
  • Database Guru
  • PHP Developer

You either need to already know about wine, or be willing to learn! Yes, such is the tough life of a Snoothie. Click here to read the job descriptions. If you, or someone you know fits the bill contact us. If you refer someone to us that we end up hiring we’ll buy you a case of wine, provided you’re over 21.

Secondly, as much as I like to read my own prose, I think its time we got some professional talent on the blog. If you’re a winemaker, retailer, or just know a lot about wine and want to field user questions, or write about something wine related you know about, be it the prospects for this year’s harvest in Chile or why screw caps really are a good alternative to corks, then we’d love to hear from you. Just contact us and lets start talking.

August 23, 2007

Wine Newb

posted by kabir in Wine

It’s time for me to confess: I am in fact a complete wine newb. When I was hired by Snooth I knew next to nothing about wine (at Oxford I once asked “How can a wine be dry, when it’s liquid?” I’m going to pretend I didn’t see you laugh). I didn’t understand how “process” a wine’s taste or tell other people what I was tasting, and why so many people enjoyed this very odd tasting drink was a complete mystery to me. Suffice it to say that I’ve rapidly lost my naivety since joining up.

I’ve been introduced to the art of tasting a wine, and properly experiencing it — letting the subtle flavors and aromas play out in your mouth, so I can understand (and more importantly enjoy) a wine. Thanks in part to this, and in part to Jancis Robinson’s How to Taste I’ve also learned to understand what wine critics (and anyone else) mean when they say that a wine is “dry” or “full-bodied” or “hot with a hint of chocolate on the attack and lots of tannins” — and much to my amazement when I found out, they aren’t just making it all up to sound sophisticated — it’s all there!

Though I may still disagree, or not “get” a wine from time to time, looking at various characteristics that Snooth lists for wines has been a big help with that. I can look at tags for a wine that I know and figure out the appropriate words to describe a certain part of what I taste. So, while I’m still a wine newb, after being at Snooth I’m hopefully experienced enough to handle myself around a bottle back at Oxford.

You’d be surprised at how much you can learn about wine from writing SQL queries for Snooth’s databases.

August 22, 2007

Snooth Business Plan Pitch

posted by philip in Snooth

We just entered an online Wine 2.0 business plan competition - you can see the video pitch here. If you have a spare couple of minutes and are interested in the background behind Snooth, or want a neak peak into what we plan for the future this is probably the best way to get it.

Once you’re there, if you decide to vote for us, or comment on the plan itself…that’s good too!

August 21, 2007

Today’s 25

posted by philip in Snooth, Partnerships

Please join we in welcoming this week’s 25 new partners:

  • HdV Wines
  • The R.H. Phillips Winery
  • Long Meadow Ranch
  • Larkmead Vineyards
  • Peterson Winery
  • Montevina Winery
  • Orin Swift Cellars
  • Wine Thieves
  • Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery
  • Chateau Ste. Michelle
  • Chandelle Winery
  • SidewaysWineClub.com
  • Oregon Wine Merchants
  • Everett Ridge Winery
  • Young’s Fine Wines and Spirits
  • Folie Deux Winery
  • Martin and Weyrich Winery
  • Melville Vineyards and Winery
  • Davis Bynum Winery
  • Patz and Hall
  • Wine By The Schott
  • Caldwell Winery
  • Silverado Vineyards
  • Lynch Vineyards
  • 14 Hands Wines
August 20, 2007

Correcting Data

posted by philip in Snooth

A lot of wineries have begun to help us out, fixing their wine data, adding images and generally acting as ‘benevolent forces’ on the site. My favorite ‘fix’ so far just has to be this wine from Twisted Oak. It’s correct name is 2005 Sierra Foothills %@#$!, but it turned out that in the database we actually had it down as 2005 Sierra Foothills $%@*! - well many thanks to Jeff Stai for pointing this out.

To the rest of you: thanks to you all for your hard work.