In case you haven’t picked up on this already, Julie (mostly) and I have been doing a lot of research about Texas wines, vineyards, and wineries. We’re writing an app-based Texas wine tour guide for mobile devices (iPhone/iPad/Android/etc) and want it to be as accurate as possible. What motivated Julie to start working on the guide was our frequent unplanned road trips and the absence of an accurate, up-to-date resource that’s fully accessible (NO FLASH, PLEASE) from our iDevices (iPhone/iPad) while driving in potentially not-in-cell-tower-range areas of Texas. How our portable brains got to be i-Based instead of w-Based or a-Based is another story, and if you don’t understand the first part of the sentence, you probably won’t appreciate the story.

Back to the topic, I think. What was the topic, anyway? Oh.. research.

We have spent a lot of time collecting information for our guide and our personal consumption by trolling the “interwebs”, and would like to share some of our findings, but mostly our opinions, about the state of Texas vineyards and wineries on the internet.

• Nestled is the favorite word used to describe a winery location. The average web surfer looking up Texas wineries might not notice, but we did. Reminded me of a quote once attributed to Sam Houston, “There are more Baptists in Texas than people.” I’m unsure about the veracity of the quote or the attribution, but both seem reasonable.
• We hate Flash(tm) sites. Sure, we mostly hate them because they won’t show on our iDevices or any one else’s mobile phone, but even if the iPhone supported Flash, it would be a bear to navigate them. They’re all about pretty effects and music, but when we’re looking things up in the car, we want information.
• Please keep your web sites current. Several sites we visited have information from the early 2000s. I’m glad that your ’04 Zin was platinum in Rio and costs $8.42 a bottle. Is it actually still for sale?
• If you don’t make wine, how are you a winery? We ran across a few web sites claiming to be a winery, but it’s pretty obvious from their site that they don’t actually produce wines. Sure, this is America and you can call yourself St. George’s Sex on a Plate and be a burger house (but they had better be fantastic burgers), but it’s just wrong to call yourself a winery when you’re really a cafe. It’s a personal gripe and I’m OK now.

There’s more, I’m sure, but I can hear Julie milling around now. She’s probably packing for our next Texas Vineyard and Winery road trip. We’re leaving this morning and returning sometime. Maybe.