Archive for the 'Food and Drink' Category
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Posted by Bloggeries in Food and Drink
If you are heading to California any time soon, be sure to check out the California Winehiker’s Blog - It’s a Wine Blog. Here you are going to find a blog that blends both the love for outdoors and the love for wine culture in one handy spot. The goal at Winehikers is to provide their guests, who they esteem as treasured, with wine country experiences resulting in sensory satisfaction, rekindled vigor, and indelible memories. This is a blog about wine and hiking, the winehiking blog. The blog isn’t about just that however, you will find a wealth of information on tours, California wine country, and information on the Top 20 Wines. Take a sip of any of their recent bloggeries to get the true taste of the blog: Saturday Sippin’, For all you Vayniacs who don’t stay up late, Freewheelin Friday Links, Cabernet in July, Thirsty Thursday Links, Opening new doors in Winemaking, Gary Vaynerchuk Going Big-Time Tomorrow Night, Cougar, and Just one Week Left to Win that Bottle of Dominus.
.jpg "Wine from California - Cliff Wines")
The navigation system on this blog is very easy. Posts are left marginalized with black text on white background, and there is a very appealing ‘vineyard feel’ green border around the blog with an attractive vineyard header. There is a right sided navigation bar that contains Winehiking information; a Case of Wine Contest; Subscription information; Testimonials for the site; Upcoming Tours information; Archives menu; as well as other food, wine, and hiking blogs. You will also find here the Categories menu that contains categories incuding Grape squeezins, Tasting notes, Tasting venues, Technical Stuff, Wine Reviews, and Winehikers trails. If you are a wine lover, or just a hiking lover, there is a wealth of information for you right on this site. And if nothing else, the active readership alone makes this blog a very credible read for its niche.
This blog gets a 3.4/5 from me. I would like to see a few things added. I think relevant pictures would give this blog a little more punch, and a recent posts menu would also add ease of navigation to the blog’s organization. I find there is a little too much ‘blogvertising’ in each post. Each post contains appeals for emailing, digging, commenting, voting for, subscribe to, all for this particular blog. I see the point and hope this method is working for the blogger, but as a reader I find this content in every single post extremely distracting and it takes away from the blog content. I find the content itself to be excellently written and with the personal voice that readers of blogs tend to enjoy. These suggestions are offered simply to improve what is already a very good blog. Overall I think the uniqueness of the blog, and its daily content are going to serve the ultimate purpose for the blog which is a strong following and inevitable success.
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Food and Drink
If you are looking for a good wine recommendation, and who isn’t, then you may want to stop in and have a look at Fine Wine Reviews and Ratings. Here you will find the blog for the Wine School of Philadelphia. The authors of this blog, Keith Wallace and Brian Freedman, offer this blog as an entry point for those that are interested in the Wine School. You will find here a collection of wine reviews, wine columns, day-to-day happenings, restaurant reviews, and tasting sheets that are included with every wine class or event that is hosted by the school. The philosophy at the Wine School is that information is critical for the true appreciation of a good wine, and that it should be available to everyone. The school itself provides a dynamic experience that merges both the academic and sensory experiences of wine appreciation. The mission at the Wine School is to raise wine education standards and to foster a community of passionate wine enthusiasts. You can see them ringing their philosophy true with their passionate reviews and columns that you will find in any of their recent bloggeries: Italian Pick of the Week – Montesole Fiano di Avellino 2003, L’Oca’s Anchovies, Domaine de la Janasse 2006 Cotes du Rhone Blanc, Italian Pick of the Week – Bertani “Le Lave” 2002 Veneto, The August Newsletter, Italian Pick of the Week – Saladini Pilastri Rosso Piceno 2004, Vino Divino, and Italian Pick of the Week – Torre dei Gesuiti Sarrocco 2004 Puglia IGT.
You will find navigation on this wine blog very simple and easy to follow. The posts are left marginalized and there are both top and right navigation bars. Posts are standard black text on white background with a pale blue border around the post page. In the right navigation bar you will find the categories menu that contains the About page, BYOB Restaurants, Our Top Wine Shopping Spots, A Guide to Fairmount Restaurants, Get Your Free Wine Guide Today, Sitemap, and Bloglinks. If you travel to the About page you will find more categories including Food and Wine, The Wine World, Wine Reviews, and Wine Tasting Sheets. You will also find in the right navigation system the blogroll and subscription links. The top navigation bar is divided into the sections Taste, Read, Learn, Hire, and Give. Here you can read about wine tastings, reviews, wine courses, hire the School for corporate events, or give the gift of wine. I am unsure as to how long the blog has been active as there are no archives. The only navigation issue I had was the missing recent posts menu, which always makes jumping from one post to the other that much easier. However the blog is very simply laid out and overall has no serious navigation issues.
I will go with a 3.4 on this one. I always find wine blogs very interesting, and this one was no exception. The content is well written and clearly from an industry professional which gives the reviews and information an abundance of credibility. The blog scores well for uniqueness, navigation, and content then. However the blog is missing a little bit of punch that would spice up some of the postings and reviews. I think pictures of the wine being reviewed would add some zip to their sip and make the blog more aesthetically pleasing. I also think the blog could use posting a little more regular than weekly and even if just a small addition of wine quips or trivia here would definitely add to the appeal of the blog. Another suggestion would be to try and use some of the white space under the right column or stretch the actual blogs width because it is quite condensed at the moment with lots of empty space on the page. Overall however, the blog is a very informative read, and any wine lover would definitely take something valuable from it.
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- Chrissie
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Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews, Food and Drink
Ever find yourself trying to figure out what wine goes with what meat, or where in the world to get a good wine? If so, you need to bookmark “Classic Wines News“. This is a site known as Classic Wines that is there to help you find your way to the perfect selection of wines. You can buy wines online here using their site, and you will also get up to date wine price comparisons from various Internet wine stores and wineries. You will also have the opportunity to view different wine reviews, wine articles, wine pairings, and meet other wine officianados like yourself. Not ONLY that but you can search for specific wines by type, region (of the WORLD that is), price, food pairing, or really, anything, and Classic Wines offers all of these wine resources to you for absolutely no cost. Recent articles cover the anything and everything to wines and include: French Wines on a Budget, You Can Take it With You, Fragrant White Wines, Fraudulent Bottles, Spa Day and Chardonnay, The Perfect Warm-Weather Wine, and The Truth about Foi Gras.
I would like to say this site was easy to navigate, but truthfully, it is very busy. While this lends to the comprehensiveness of the information they provide, it does make it difficult to navigate unless you have tipped your glass here more than a few times. There are several navigation bars and it took me more than a few minutes to figure them out. On the home page, you will find running down the center some very useful menus such as Wine of the Week, Region of the Week, Recent Reviews, and Recent Wine Articles. The FIRST left sided navigation bar includes a menu where you can click on Wines by the Region. Here you can go anywhere in the world to see what wines are being offered, and where. Yes, ANYWHERE in the world. Love that menu. In this same navigation bar you will find specific Wine Columns divided into categories: Wine Investing, Wine Trends, Wine Lifestyle, and Food and Wine.
Then travel over to the second navigation bar that you will have found once you travel past the homepage and into the body of the site. This navigation bar takes place of the standard right-sided navigation bar but sort of appears in the middle of the page and I found a bit distracting. However, here you find the standard blog links such as Archives, and the blog categories: Classic Wine Pairings, CWM Transcripts, Editor’s Choice, Lisa’s Great Parings, The Wine Mogul, Wine and the City, Wine Buying Guides, Wine Prices, Wine Regions, and so much more. At the TOP of the site, you will then find links for Home, Wine Articles, Food and Wine, Wine Directories, Wine Accessories, Coupons, Videos, and Search Wines. I know it all sounds complicated, but spend some time here and it works itself out for you. As I said, the busyness lends to the comprehensiveness. They want to offer you a lot, and they do.
I am going with 4 corks for this one. The site is unique in that I don’t believe any wine question goes unanswered here. It is extremely active and the content is written very well by what appears to be a team of writers. As I said, the appearance can use some work but I think just moving that navigation bar over to the right side would make a huge difference. And I also think the ads are way too obvious, intrusive almost. However this site does well for marketing a large number of wine products, and provides useful and valuable information at the same time. I still recommend a bookmark if you are thinking about popping a cork anytime soon. Did you enjoy this review? Click here to get your own blog reviewed!
- Chrissie
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