A Broker's Wine Adventures: An Online Place To Share Your Wine Experiences

While driving through any of California's wine producing regions, you'll see that vines pruned to dark brown are once again bright green with new spring growth.  Summer is around the corner and it's time to tour the vineyards and taste the new releases.  Wine tasting is partly about the wine and partly about the adventure, places and people experienced along the way.  It can be a very social experience.

During a recent late night Internet click-a-thon, I came across www.govine.com, a web site where members share their favorite wine tours and notes on wines and wineries.  Membership is free and there is little advertising.  Members pick from an extensive database of primarily northern California wineries to create personalized tours that are shared with other members. 

To create a custom tour, members go to the winery database and click on a set of wineries to be included, and then add notes about the tour.  Many members have added suggestions for meals and side trips.  The system then plots a Google Map that is also attached to the tour.  Members can enter multiple tours and give each one a custom name.  I entered my first tour this morning - look me up and click on John's North Napa One.

You get the feeling that this site is still in its infancy, though the layout, graphics, and navigation are well thought out and function without a glitch.  Much like other social sites, the member profile page has a wall where you can post public comments, both on your own page or on another member's page.  Members can also create a list of friends.

If you're navigating your day in wine country with a mobile device with Internet access, you can use the winery profiles to find wineries on a map or to check which tasting rooms are open to the public.  I still prefer using WineryQuest Pro on my iPhone for this, but the winery profiles on govine.com are a good substitute.

Have fun on your winery tours this summer - drive safely, drink responsibly, share your adventures.

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Questions about wine country or northern California real estate?  Drop me a line at john@jsrealproperty or visit my web site at www.jsrealproperty.com