The Adegga Blog

Next week we will be in Rioja for the European Wine Blogging Conference. On the first day we’ll participate in a special wine tasting with wines provided by each participant. We have chosen the wines will take to the tasting.

Being from Portugal and going to a wine tasting doesn’t come without responsability. We know Portugal is producing great wines and we had to get some of these for the tasting. I think we can say that we were able to get good examples of the best of Portuguese wine making.

Niepoort
Dirk Niepoort from Niepoort provided us with thee magnums from some of his best wines: Redoma Reserva 2004, Batuta 2004 and the inevitable Niepoort Vintage 2005.

Herdade do Portocarro
The passion demonstrated by José da Mota Capitão taking me on a visit to Herdade do Portocarro is certainly demonstrated in the character of his wines. Fellow EWBC colleagues will be able to confirm his passionate approach to wine making when tasting the Cavalo Maluco 05, the Anima L5 which is made with the not very common (in Portugal) Sangiovese grape and the Herdade do Portocarro 2004.

And finally a Portuguese Sparkling wine that was requested by Ryan and Denise on the choose a wine from Portugal, we’ll bring it post we did a few weeks ago.

I think this is very good news for the lucky conference attendees. We’ll report how the wine tasting went!

We have just launched a new release of adegga (which we named Tempranillo) that includes new profile pages for wineries and members, a new activity log and a new way to add a rating or write a note on a wine!

New profiles pages
We’ve redesigned all profile pages on adegga. Members have new profiles with an improved design and a list of recent activity. Wine profiles are back to one page making it easier to read and find the type of information you’re looking for. Notes, blog posts and wine prices are there as usual but in a more organized way (example).

But the biggest change was made on Winery profiles which now include a sortable list of wines, an improved about section (with possibility of video and photo slideshow) and a list of recent activity. We’re starting to give control of producer profiles to wine producers and this is the result of the feedback we’ve been getting on what this profile should have.

Here’s an example of a new producer profile:

New activity log
Updates from your watchlist (contacts, producers or shops) were limited to wines tasted and added to the cellar. Not anymore! The new activity log allows you to track much more information and to know for example when a friend started following a new winery.

But there’s more. Wine producer profiles now include latest activity on its wines. Member profiles also include latest activity. This means more information to make it easier for you to see what is going on.

New add rating / write note
When you visit a wine page you can now easily add a rating or a note without leaving the page. Just press Rate it / Add note and a rating / note box will show up allowing you too more easily add your review of a wine.

Tempranillo release
As you probably noticed we have started naming our feature updates (or code releases) after grapes names. We choose Tempranillo as the first one for a reason! Tempranillo is the main grape used in Rioja which is also the region we’ll be heading to in a couple of days to join the European Wine Blogging Conference.

Alongside these features we have been preparing adegga for two major changes. On this release we laid down the foundations for the upcoming redesign and for another surprise feature. Stay tuned!