The web is a big place.No matter how good you are at concocting perfect search strings on Google or whatever search engine you're using, when it comes to finding information on wine it can be damn hard to locate something useful.
Enter Able Grape.
They say they're in Beta, but they look like they're all set to become the Alpha Wine Information Search Engine. With over 13 million pages of online wine information indexed and searchable, this is like a one-stop online reference library. And because it's dedicated to wine, just a word or two in the search box will usually yield results--the kind of results you're looking for, not the stuff you have no interest in when you type in Cabernet Sauvignon (as in, Cabernet Sauvignon bath products).
What kind of information is gathered on Able Grape? Reference works, producer websites, blogs, scientific articles, event information, tasting notes are all included in the database, and then they're just a click away.
Check out the site next time you have a wine question, like what does Pineau d'Aunis taste like, or what kind of soil Pinot Noir likes. It's probably faster than driving to your local library to try to find the answer on Able Grape.
3 comments:
Just a note that Able Grape will not work with IE 6x. When trying to query a wine, the following message appears:
Safari 2.0/3.0 (Mac)
Firefox 2 (Mac/PC)
Internet Explorer 7.0 (PC)
Opera 9 (Mac/PC)
Just an FYI...bad news for those of us not willing to upgrade to 7x
Hi Deb,
My apologies for not supporting IE 6. Unfortunately, IE 6, which was released in 2001, is very different than other, more modern browsers, and being a very small company, we just don't have the resources to support our user interface functionality on that platform. We continue to explore ways of supporting it, but I can't promise if or when that will happen. In the mean time, if you don't wish to upgrade IE, Firefox 3.0 will coexist peacefully with it, and is fast, stable, and free. That might be worth a look, and takes only a moment to install - we'd love to have you as an Able Grape user.
Doug Cook
Deb, for what it's worth, I'd recommend downloading and using Firefox. It's much more stable and has the juice to deal with contemporary websites, and its free. You can keep IE6 on your computer for the .0001% of sites that require IE.
Post a Comment