RetailerSelect & Local Searching

May 04, 2008 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates |  1 comment

Vinquire has added a new feature and we wanted you to be the first to know. Our new RetailerSelect option allows you to perform a "local search" of the wine retailers in your neighborhood only, to help you find that great bottle much closer to home.



It's simple to use: enter the name of the wine into the search field (as you've always done), but now, by selecting "Local Retailers", you can enter your zip code and a maximum distance to limit the results to wines near your home. Additionally, Vinquire displays the results on Google Maps^TM, so you can easily see where they are located and how to get there.

Here's an example search for "Beringer Private Reserve" in San Francisco, CA.

Why We Love "Local" Searching

How many times have you found a great deal searching a wine, only to discover that the retailer is nowhere near you? Now our new "local search" feature can help you avoid the hassles of long distance ordering:

• Exorbitant shipping prices (especially for small purchases)
• Retailers that won't ship long distance
• Waiting a week (or longer) for UPS to deliver that bottle that you needed NOW
• Warm weather risks. Depending on the time of year, it may not be the best climate for shipping high-end bottles around the country.

Finding Local Retailers

We've also added a "Find Retailers" section to the website to help you locate retailers in your area. Once you've selected a retailer, you can click to search only their inventory to see what the store has available before you visit.

Happy Hunting

Call it what you will...we've got buzz words like "geographical awareness," "vicinity based," and "proximity search enabled" — but at the end of the day, we think it's just plain cool. We hope you enjoy the new features!

News & Updates

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Find Good Wines in the Neighborhood

Apr 29, 2008 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates, Press Releases |  1 comment

Press Release:

Find Good Wines in the Neighborhood

Vinquire's new search feature helps wine lovers find retailers in their area.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 29, 2008 — Visitors to Vinquire.com can now search for wine at retailers and wineries as close as a mile from their living rooms. The new local search functionality enables users to enter their Zip Code, along with the wine they wish to locate, and find bottles in their immediate vicinity. The new search technology helps avoid expensive wine shipping costs.

Additionally, nearby wines are charted via Google Maps™ for easy navigation. By selecting a retailer in the list, visitors can find driving directions, contact information, or a link to the retailer's website. Now visitors not only have the ability to find the wine they want, but find the bottle with the shortest route from the store to the dinner table.

Additionally, the site features a "Find Retailers" tab which includes the option of searching for wines at a specific retailer only -- a helpful tool for those with a local store in mind. Users with a free Vinquire account can also create a list of their Favorite Retailers, and limit their searches to wines available at those locations exclusively. These powerful features enable users to find wines that are available for pickup immediately.

Unlike other wine search engines, Vinquire displays all wine search results available every time, regardless of site sponsors. In addition, the search engine is constantly updated with fresh wine inventory data via Vinquire's proprietary web crawling technology.

About Vinquire.com
Vinquire.com is a free search engine for wine enthusiasts. Based in San Francisco, CA, Vinquire maintains a database of over 1,000,000 wines to help users find, review and buy wine. For more information, visit http://www.vinquire.com/.

News & Updates, Press Releases

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Vinquire.com launches free comprehensive wine search engine

Nov 06, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates, Press Releases |  0 comments

Press Release:

Find The Best Wine Deals Online

Vinquire.com launches free comprehensive wine search engine.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) November 6, 2007 — Vinquire.com, a San Francisco based wine portal, today unveils a free wine search engine enabling users to search for wines at over 3,300 U.S. wineries and retailers. Vinquire inventories over 500,000 wines and offers users the ability to find virtually any wine at competitive prices.

Unlike other wine search engines, Vinquire displays all wine search results available every time, regardless of site sponsorships. In addition, the search engine is constantly updated with fresh wine inventory data via Vinquire's proprietary web crawling technology. And, much like Google™ search, users can employ advanced requests to fine tune results.

Vinquire also offers social networking features enabling users to submit wine reviews, participate in forum discussions, and receive wine recommendations that are based entirely on other users' reviews. Additionally, the site is able to deliver customizable wine recommendations which can be optionally limited to wines available at chain stores such as BevMo, Albertsons, and Trader Joe's.

Vinquire is the first wine site that merges both a powerful wine pricing search engine with community-centric features. This enables Vinquire to not only deliver recommendations based on user-reviewed wines, but also help users find those bottles at the best prices. Based in San Francisco, CA, John Kleven and Andy Hund founded Vinquire in late 2005 and the site officially launched in 2007.

The search is available now at Vinquire.com.

About Vinquire.com
Vinquire.com is a free wine search engine that enables users to find the best prices on wine. Based in San Francisco, CA, Vinquire maintains information on over 500,000 wines and allows users to search for, discuss, and review wines. For more information, visit www.vinquire.com.

News & Updates, Press Releases

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Pictures & Profiles

Oct 26, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates |  0 comments

Another site update, hot of the presses from the wee hours of Friday morning. Per usual, our search results should be even better. Secondly (and this is really cool), users can now upload a picture of themselves that will be displayed next to their reviews -- lets get some faces to go with those names!

Additionally, each user now has a public profile; a page which displays your reviews and your karma for the rest of the world to see. Now you can see what other users have been reviewing, and maybe even find a tasting buddy with a similar palate. There are also new city and zip code fields in your profile, as well as some controls to limit what information is publicly displayed.

As always, if you find bugs or need help using a feature, please don't hesitate to contact us and tell us what we can do better. Thanks for using Vinquire and enjoy.

News & Updates

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New Beta Release

Oct 03, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates |  0 comments

As you may have noticed, Vinquire.com got a facelift! And along with our simple, easy-to-use feel, we offer what we think is an even easier way to search the largest wine price comparison database on the internet. You can now:

Find more wines smarter

Our AI now condenses down wine name variations to bring you what you want cleaner. And you're still able to find the bottle you want at the best price.

Vote review helpfulness

Users can weigh in on how useful other reviewers' comments have been. Maybe you'll find a reviewer you agree with, or not. These votes contribute to a wine's WineRank and affect Vinquire's wine recommendations.

And here's a little horn-tooting. Did you know that Vinquire crawls and indexes over 4 million wine retailer pages? And that we search constantly in order to deliver the most current, up-to-date wine prices? It’s just another way that Vinquire is bringing our users the best way to find, review, and buy wine ... for free!

Post your comments now, and thanks as always for using Vinquire.com.

News & Updates

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Update 8/16/2007

Aug 16, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates |  0 comments

We completed a fairly large update of Vinquire.com late last night. The highlights include:

Edit your wine reviews

After many requests, the users have finally prevailed. You can now edit any of the wine reviews you've submitted, from either your My Reviews area, or the wine detail page where you entered them.

Two new areas of the site, "Buy" and "Review"

On previous versions we had these areas merged into one, however, if you're really going to buy a wine and want to find the best price, the "combo search" was not ideal.

• With the new "Buy" tab, you should always be able to find a bottle you want to purchase at the best price available. Search results on this tab are sorted by price to help accomplish this.
• Likewise, if you're looking to review a wine, or find reviews related to a wine, the new "Review" tab is where you should click. On this page we no longer show wines for sale, but we do show review specific information.

Wine database update

Our AI (which finds the wines for sale) was updated, which means our search engine is smarter than ever. The search results on the "Buy" tab should be rock solid, we will find you that bottle at the best price, every time.

Let us know what you think, and thanks for taking the time to check out Vinquire.com.

News & Updates

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Sonoma Wine Taste-Off Results & Thank You!

May 30, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  Wine Tasting, Events |  0 comments

On Tuesday night the Vinquire team and the San Francisco Wine Enthusiasts Meetup group got together for a fabulous wine tasting with 12 bottles from Sonoma County. Thanks kindly to the wineries for their fantastic contributions as well as to Tom Merle for doing the legwork to obtain these bottles.

Despite running around and not being able to take the proper time to taste, Andy and I both enjoyed the majority of the wines. We tabulated the results from everyone's excellent reviews, and here are the highest ranking wines:

Hook & Ladder Russian River Valley Estate 2005 Merlot

Roshambo Winery "Justice" Sonoma County 2004 Syrah

Deerfield Ranch Ladi's Vineyard 2002 Syrah

Roy J. Maier Sonoma County Mountains 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon

Loxton Vineyards Sonoma Hillside Vineyards 2003 Syrah

Alexander Valley Vineyards 'New Gewurz' 2006 North Coast Gewurztraminer

Deerfield Ranch 2003 Merlot Cuvee

Thanks kindly to everyone who participated in the event — your palates helped us determine some solid winners. Feel free to post any comments on the event (both positive and negative) below.

Cheers~
John/Andy

Wine Tasting, Events

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SF Wine Enthusiasts Meetup.com - Good Times!

Apr 24, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  Wine Tasting, Events |  0 comments

Andy and I made our debut at a fairly large meetup.com group last night, the San Francisco Wine Enthusiasts (http://wine.meetup.com/321/?gj=sj5). The theme was widely available wines for under $10 so we knew this event was right up our alley!

Had a great time if anybody from meetup.com is reading today we just wanted to say thanks! Next time I will be taking more notes on the wines, but I do remember a few, including:

Alexander and Fitch Cabernet, 2003

Overall winner from last night. Although this wasn't my favorite, the price was certainly right and I know they are blowing these out at Trader Joe's for $5.99.

Panilonco Carmenere, 2005

My personal fave. Smooth and chalky, with limited fruit but great mouthfeel and smoke coming through on the end.

Kaiken Malbec

(didn't get the vintage) Another South American winner, Andy gave it 87 points and said it was jammy and spicy with a nice finish.

Grove Street Trias

Was picked up at the winery by a meetup.com member for 10 dollars I believe. Great deal. http://www.vinquire.com/reviews/125555/all/ and http://www.grovestreetwinery.com/product/9.

Stonehedge Stagecoach Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, 2003

For $12.99 at Trader Joe's this is an absolute steal! We know it's available at all 3 Traders in SF.
http://www.vinquire.com/reviews/184622/all/

Cheers to everyone and especially Tom for putting on such a great event!

Wine Tasting, Events

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Karma Police

Apr 12, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates |  0 comments

In order to ensure proper WineRankings throughout Vinquire's wine review database we've introduced a Review Karma for every user. Your Review Karma is based entirely on what other Vinquire users thought of your wine reviews; particularly, how helpful your review was to them.

Under each wine review you'll now see a small form to evaluate the helpfulness of the review:



When you come across a review that you thought helped shape your opinion of a wine, click "Helpful". Alternatively, when you come across a review that didn't help you at all or you thought was just poor overall, click "Not Helpful". You would also want to click "Helpful" if you thought an individual reviewer had exceptional wine knowledge and a well trained palate.

Additionally, if you're curious about your Review Karma status go to your My Reviews page and you'll see it at the top. The more "Helpful" votes you've received, the higher your Review Karma. If you're in the negative, don't be discouraged. What may help is to browse other user's reviews for ideas on ways to improve. Additional information on this page will be each of your review's overall helpfulness, which led to your Review Karma score. This may assist you in identifying your better and not so good reviews.

Keep up the good work everyone, and stay tuned for more features to come!

News & Updates

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Yes, you're on Vinquire.com!

Apr 05, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  News & Updates |  0 comments

We updated the site, big time. Just about everything has changed, highlights include:

New Look & Feel

The new site is higher contrast and should prove easier to read. The site navigation has moved to the left-hand sidebar, and various recent site activity can be found at the bottom of every page.

Wine Recommendations

We now offer wine recommendations for every taste and budget. You can even limit the recommendations to wines that are available at a large retailer (currently Trader Joe's, Costco, BevMo, Albertsons, and Safeway) so you don't have to go out of your way to pick up a palatable bottle.

Advanced Search

On the advanced search page you can now specify price ranges, bottle sizes, and vintage information. Additionally (much like the recommendations feature) you can limit wine results to those available at certain large retailers. You can also sort results on "WineRank" which will order wines via Vinquire's hi-tech recommendation system.

Cleaner Search Results

Search a wine and see what you think. We only display the wine name once now (followed by a list of retailer links to buy that wine), which will hopefully result in less confusion about which wine to click on.

RSS Feeds

Any place you see an icon you can subscribe to the RSS feed for that item (Blog Entries, Wine Reviews, and Forum Posts).

Massive Wine Index

If you're looking to buy a wine at the best price available, our new massive index of wines should help you find the right wine, and the right retailer, for the right price.

Enjoy~
Vinquire.com

News & Updates

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Napa: Cabernet, Traffic, and Magic

Feb 25, 2007 |  Vinquire (14) |  Wine Tasting |  0 comments

So we did the Napa gig this last weekend, and as with anything, there are highs, and lows. We won't waste your time so if you are planning a Napa trip here are the ten commandments (minus 7):

click for winery map

1. Avoid the weekends

I know this is hard, but if you can, try to hit Napa on any day except Saturday or Sunday. Many of the high end wineries aren't even open on the weekend. Additionally, there's traffic and the "disneyland" effect which subtracts from the wine and love of grapes in general.

2. Plan in advance

As in, at least 2-3 weeks out. We thought we had something special going for us, "but .... we're industry!". No matter who you are or who you work for, Napa is becoming (has become?) incredibly exclusive. If you want to taste at the "in" wineries, you need reservations, and you need them at least 2 weeks in advance. Of course many places will take in anyone without a reservation, but if you are a wine nerd then it really makes all the difference to setup an appointment.

3. Bring a suitcase of cash

Napa is expensive, and you'd better bring a friend, like Visa, Mastercard, or preferably something with the word "Platinum" on it. Many places are charging $20 plus for tastings, and if you want to eat at one of the many amazing restaurants, then you need some deep pockets.

Ok, the postives!! Please friends, the facts are in and regardless of money, crowds and cash, Napa delivers. Big time. The cab, the cab and ohhh... the cab! I have a smile on my face just thinking of the tastings .... big, bold, well balanced, and just fun yummy juice. Definately worth it!!

We tasted at Hall, Sawyer, and Honig. Yup, barely scratched the surface.

Hall

This was random. We initially were aiming for V. Sattui, and yet something about the jam-packed parking lot and wal-mart feel made us do a huge u-turn. Upon driving across the street, we stumbled upon Hall. And thankfully ... they proved their worth. We tasted their 3 standard releases, a sauv blanc, merlot , and cabernet sauvignon. Pretty uninspring, but the reserves were a different story. Hall has two reserves to be tasted and we recommend forgoing their 2nd tier wines and going straight for the real deal. Kathryn Hall "Sacrashe Vineyard" Cabernet is it. Smooth yet structured and in general, a fabulous cab. Doesn't need another day of cellaring, just do it, tomorrow. The Kathryn Hall cab was our overall fave of the whole trip. Hall's second reserve cab is a monster, and frankenstien needs at least another 5 years in the lab before he's ready for drinking. Don't get us wrong, it's a winner, but it needs some time.

Sawyer

Defines what Napa used to be and what we all wish it was -- a barn. Down home backcountry and rustic, this converted barn is now serving some quality wines. We weren't blown away, but nonetheless, we had a great time with the ambiance and layed back servers who really care about your opinion and their wines. We tasted their sauvignon blanc, bordeaux blend, and cabernet sauvignon.

Honig

Without a doubt, the most confusing wines the Vinquire crew has dealt with. Honig single-handedly calls into question the entire 100 point scale. While their sauvignon blancs were straightforward (and good!), their cabernet is a personal preference. If you like smooth, oaked, vanilla, easy drinking cabs... then brother, you need to visit Honig tomorrow. However if you crave complex, structured and bold cabs, then give it a miss. It was impossible to score these cabs, tasting notes had ridiculous musings like "88-93 points, do you like yellow tail" on them. Go figure. Maybe give it a go and then let us know what you thought?? Help?

And that's all she wrote. Napa is the new-world's answer to the old-world's wines. Watch out for the traffic and enjoy the ride.

-V

Wine Tasting

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