DISQUS

It'll be nice to see you again Robert. A presto, Gianpaolo

I was at terroir last week, exactly the day that Metro published a very bad review about the service. Terroirs is a venture of my UK importers Les Caves de Pyrene, in my opinion one of the innovative and brilliant wine importer in UK. Their choice of byodinamic and organic wines is impressive and their style is unconventional. Terroirs have a terrific wine list, exactly the wine list ones want to find at a place like that, nothing similar to the cliche' wine lists, boring and without personality that too often are found in Uk eateries.
We have a wine there, the "Principio", Ciliegiolo from Tuscany's Maremma, and I'm proud of it, but the selection of wine is stunning and the food is good too.
The bad review came after at least 10 incredibly positive reviews and I think that they needed that (the management and the rest of the staff seem to agree with this) to prevent too much resting on the laurels. I have to say that from what I learned that night must have had the most unfortunate series of bad luck coincidences (the front room manager was away for paternity leave, the other was abroad and one of the best waitress was just recovering from a car accident) but all the same I think that is an extraordinary place if you love wine.

hey, i'm going to be in London too from tuesday to friday. Unfortunately I'll leave on friday, but may be we can meet elsewhere, maybe at Sitt if I can make it. My cell is 07595605632 give me a call if you wish.
Gianpaolo

I absolutely agree with you about who's the best video is. I watched ten times already.
I only regret that I had to do mine in the kitchen in UK rather than in the vineyards in Tuscany. There is a certain difference!

Hope you got everything from me Robert.
Oh, the wines will be available for UK delivery purchasing from my website from tomorrow. Hope everything goes well. Bye Gianpaolo

I read the post of Alistair and went directly on their website with enthusiasm. In fact this idea of creating a tasting panel of 100 people it is something that I have done on my blog for my winery just 2-3 months ago. It was quite an interesting experience to me and to others, since Zonin winery, which is the largest privately owned winery in Italy, decided to follow my example.
I subscibed and gave all the answer etc, but I was quite disappointed because I was not taken in (I gave my UK address not the Italian one). The same happened to a friend of mine, Stefano Caffari. Yes, the suspect is that they are trying to build a database, otherways they should tell the people that they have already reached the 100 people they wanted so they shouldn't bother to subscribe. That's what I've done on my tasting panel.
Interestingly, there is also a section reserved to wine producers, which I also thought to subscribe to. They answer a few quiestion again, and than, at end you are aked to upload a price list of your wines. Which I haven't done for the exact same reason you are writing this post, I can't give details of my business away without even knowing to whom I'm given them to.
I didn't find the whole experience satisfaying I have to say, neither as a customer (I do buy wine from others too...) nor as a potential supplier.

I've been playing with the idea of QR codes. I've done some research, downloaded the software for my cell phone, transformed a few pages of my website/blog to be manageable by cell phones with mofuse, etc. The main problem in making this thing available for my wines seems to be the size of the code that have to be printed on wine labels for it to be easily scanned my my cell phone camera (a quite crappy blackberry pearl phone camera). It should be bigger than a big post stamp to work properly, especially if this is to be used in low light environment such as a restaurant. Plus, the technique is not difficult to use but it wouldn't say it is very easy either, it takes a few steps to perform the whole thing (start the software on the phone, take a usable picture, get the link to the web page where the infos are contained).
I think it's interesting anyway, and I might use it after all, especially if I can find an easy way to redo the website in mobile format. I'm glad you are talking about it and see if someone has already done it.