Site Updates Vol. 5

All improvements to this site are delivered continuously. Some changes are more noticeable than others, yet, over time, they all blend and become hardly noticeable. I enjoy looking back and celebrating the progress made. It's been a while since the last development report, and much has happened under the hood. So, let's take a moment to reflect on the latest updates.

Home Page

Pinned articles

While most articles on this site are wine-tasting reports, some deserve to be highlighted and not quickly lost in the endless and tiresome flow of updates. Therefore, I've created a section on the home page for pinned posts, including site updates, yearly reports, and important notices.

Navigation Changes

The navigation bar is prime real estate, but I am wasting it on a link to my Vivino account. Considering the navigation bar behaviour on small screens, I could not keep all the links I wanted to have, so I removed the link to all ratings, which is now accessible from the home page. I didn't do this lightly, but the plain list of ratings wasn't useful enough to justify its place in the navigation bar.

Additionally, I removed the 'read more' button in the posts list section, as it was redundant; you can click on the article title.

Calendar

People often ask about our planned wine-tasting events, so I created a dedicated page listing all planned events, even those years away. As soon as I have details, I add them to the calendar. You can click on events for more information, including hints about the wines we'll be tasting.

Remember, this is just information and not a firm commitment. Once an event is certain and approaching, I'll announce it on our Telegram channel.

That being said, do keep an eye on the calendar for updates. If something interests you, contact me for details; I might even prioritise certain events to satisfy demand.

Plots support

If you've read the yearly reports, you might have noticed the site now supports plots. Using the Plot library isn't groundbreaking, but it integrates well into the Barberry Garden ecosystem. The most exciting part is that all plot data is pulled automatically, so I don't need to update my posts when the data changes. And it's fascinating!

Score adjustments

I've received feedback about my 10-based scoring system, which wasn't quite 100-based and often confusing to readers. To add to the confusion, I used 5-based scores in event reports. After some thought, I've migrated to a 5-based scoring system with a single digit after the decimal point across the site. Consistency, simplicity and familiarity are the goals.

For wines with multiple reviews, I no longer use average scores. Instead, the latest review score is used as the final score. Controversial? Have better ideas? Let's discuss it!

Wine block adjustments

Several changes were made to the wine information displayed in wine blocks. Although it seems minor, it involved significant data updates. Thanks to the Vulpea library, I automated most migrations, but some required manual updates and checks.

Key changes include:

• Price now shows only the latest known public price. If the price is not available, it's stated clearly instead of displaying a "0 XXX" atrocity that exists solely for historical reasons.
• Wine origin details have been improved. Read further to learn more.
• Sparkling wines now specify the type (e.g., traditional, ancestral, charmat, etc.).
• Traditional sparkling wines include additional information about their base vintage, time on lees, and disgorgement date.
• Sweetness levels are now displayed in a more readable format. Arguably this is the biggest change you awaited for!

Origin of wine

Previously, I displayed only the country and the region/appellation as the wine's origin. This was often incorrect or too low-level. From now on, each wine is associated with a single country, zero or multiple regions, and zero or one appellation. This allows for more accurate and search-friendly information.

Without delving into too much detail (perhaps I'll cover this in a separate article), each wine is now associated with a single country---though this may not always be accurate, and I'm ready to adapt if necessary---along with zero, one, or multiple regions and zero or one appellation. The key improvement is the ability to combine appellation with region where it makes sense. For instance, I can label a wine as Qualitätswein while retaining the region (one of the 13 recognised regions) without duplicating efforts for Prädikatswein. Additionally, appellations and regions can have parent regions, and certain appellations can have subregions as their children. This forms a comprehensive wine origin tree, allowing me to display more detailed information and significantly enhance the search functionality in the wines table.

For example:

• Bernhard Huber Malterdinger Rot 2014: Germany » Baden » Qualitätswein.
• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru 2002: France » Burgundy » Côte d'Or » Côte de Nuits » Vosne-Romanée » Romanée-Saint-Vivant AOC.
• Agrapart Vénus 2014: France » Champagne AOC » Côte des Blancs » Avize.

This model supports a comprehensive search functionality, making it easier to find wines by their origin.

These changes are not perfect but reflect the current state of my wine database and meet my needs. As always, this is an evolutionary process, and complexity should only be added when justified by the benefits.

More custom blocks

Two new custom blocks have been added to some pages:

• Related posts: Standardised representation of related posts.
• At a glance: A TL;DR version for some producers with long descriptions. This feature will be expanded in the future.

Anything else?

One significant update is the major release of the Vino library, which is used for managing my wine-related notes. Check the release notes and updated documentation for details. A new version of Vulpea is also coming soon.

I am certain that most of the readers don't care about these specific updates, but both Vulpea and Vino are pillars of Barberry Garden, so in my book they deserve to be mentioned and praised.

What next?

While I can't promise anything, my plans include:

• Improving the table of wines.
• Adding related wines.
• Adjusting QPR calculations.
• Preparing the yearly report.
• Moving to server-side rendering (SSR) as a static-site generation approach becomes less and less feasible on this scale.
• Preparing the ecosystem for more dynamic use cases.

I'm also looking for help from UX designers and developers. If you're interested in joining the project, let me know.

See you space cowboy...