About The Wine Database

Each wine tasting published in The Wine Advocate is similar to the sample below:

Parker frequently reviews a number of wines recently released by a producer together in a combined tasting note that can consume many paragraphs or, with 'prolific' producers such as Guigal or Georges Duboeuf, much of an entire printed page. Wine Technologies carefully edits these combined notes so that the tasting note for each wine is presented with that wine on the computer screen.

The process of editing Parker's tastings for inclusion with the software is easily understood from this example. This wine was reviewed in Issue 101 (October, 1995) of The Wine Advocate along with three other chardonnays produced by Peter Michael Winery in 1993. The entire review is about four times as long as the sample shown -- the remaining text relates to each of the other three wines and is not included in our tasting note for this wine. The appropriate parts of this remaining text would be included in the database entries for each of the other three wines. Thus, the database contains virtually the entire contents of The Wine Advocate -- the key difference being the editing of information so that specific information pertaining to each wine can be presented along with that wine.

Our note for this wine is shown below, and combines any specific comments about the 1993 Monplaisir (green in the example) with any general comments which apply to all the wines reviewed (orange in the example) as well as with any information that applies to the producer (red in the example). Note that the first sentence of Parker's combined tasting note has been reworded slightly to read properly within a note for a single wine.

Structured information consists of those characteristics you can use to select and sort wines. In the example it includes:

• The Producer Name -- Peter Michael
• The Vintage Year -- 1993
• The Variety -- Chardonnay
• The Label Name of This Wine -- Monplaisir
• The Location -- Sonoma
• The Estimated Retail Price -- $28.00
• The Color -- White
• Parker's Rating -- 92

You can find wines using the software based on any combination of these structured criteria. Thus a question like "Which chardonnays from the 1993 vintage in California rated above 90 but cost less than $30.00?" can be answered in seconds. You can also search the tasting notes to find, for example, chardonnays described by Robert Parker as having a "mineral component". Either query would find the particular chardonnay used in this illustration.

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