by Bernard Roth » Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:14 pm
This is a really important topic to me, as TNs are the most useful way to convey the relevant information that helps others decide whether to seek and buy, or when to drink, a wine.
This topic tends to appear occasionally on wine boards when there appears to be a subcritical mass of participation - and hence response to TN posts. The reason is that fewer people have or know about particular esoteric or small production wines, unless they are already established with marquee or cult status. The wider the participation, the more likely that some readers will know a wine.
I used to post TNs practically every week. As my business travel has increased over the years, I have less free time at home to compose notes. Therefore, I tend to be motivated to post TNs only when I think the TN is likely to be meaningful to a critical mass of readers.
The motivating factors include:
1. Is this a wine that I have cellared for some time, and the wine is now entering into its drinking window?
2. Was I surprised by the QPR of the wine?
3. Is the wine surprisingly good yet atypical or its region?
4. Is this a wine that commands a lot of attention, but I find it flawed or not ready to drink?
5. When I barrel taste, I like to give advance notice to the community of my expectations for the vintage(s).
6. If the wines were served at a well-publicized event (professional tasting, futures tasting, offline), I am more inclined to post the highlights.
Finally, and this gets to one of Jim's points about archiving... It would be much more user friendly and way better technologically if there were a TN template form, with fields, that would allow us to incorporate standardized TNs into a post. For example, if a TN button were included with the other buttons, we could add a TN via template at any point in our post. The template should include a general notes field for our prose.
Not only would the TNs then be available for archiving, they could also be made available to certain standard Java applications. For example, when a post is categorized as containing embedded TNs, there could be a function that enables the viewer to Right-Click on the subject line to reveal a list of the wines inlcuded in the post.
Regards,
Bernard Roth