How do Corkscore's Top Drops get picked?

Just in case you are wondering: "Hey, I rated a bottle of Chateau Mifavourite 2005 at 98pts, why haven't they made that a Corkscore Top Drop"?

It's not quite that easy.

Our mission is to uncover unique artisan wines available at great value for money. To find the Top Drops we sieve through the Corkscore user reviews and create a first shortlist of highly rated wines. Then the Corkscore Wine Panel vets the list to filter out the most unique wines and eliminate any duds.

Finally, we discuss the shortlist with our merchant partners to find out which of the wines are actually available for sale. After all, it's pointless to recommend a wine, when only seven cases were ever made. We then negotiate with the merchant partner to give Corkscore members a good deal.

Our current merchant partner, the Ultimo Wine Centre, have a fabulous selection of fine wines available and can rustle up almost anything you guys have reviewed!

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Posted by Lars Herold on 28 August 2009 5:28:00 PM #

Corkscore featured in Sydney Morning Herald Video

The Wine Wisdom series of the Sydney Morning Herald recently featured Corkscore in its latest video. It was great fun having the crew over to do the filming, particularly the part when we reviewed the Cullen Mangan.

View it on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

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Posted by Lars Herold on 25 August 2009 11:07:00 AM #

Sober on Mondays

Drinking action happens on the weekend

Mondays are the perfect day of the week to have a serious conversation with wine lovers - that's when you have the highest chance that they are sober. Only 5% of wine consumption happens on a Monday, while the weekends account for 56%. As suspected, Saturday is the big drinking day, with 22% of drinks.

At Corkscore, we love stats. This analysis is not based on surveys, but on real world behaviour of wine lovers. We measured the number of iPhone wine reviews posted by our users to Corkscore.com, after cleansing the data for obvious kinks, such as test reviews by first time users.

It is not surprising that Friday and Saturday are the two big drinking nights. One should stop for a moment though to consider the consumption on Sundays, which appears just as high as on Fridays. So people aren't quite sobering up in preparation for the new work week just yet.

Perhaps we are dealing with those bottles consumed over Sunday lunch here? We will run some more numbers on varietal and regional split, as well as rating deviations by day of the week.

Until then, keep the reviews coming, folks. The more ratings we have, the more insightful analyses we can generate.

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Posted by Lars Herold on 21 August 2009 11:12:00 AM #

Newsletter August - Margaret River

Top Drops, Style File and Winery of the Month

   
 

In this issue.
  1. Corkscore's Cellar Door Crawl in Margaret River
  2. The Style File Margaret River
  3. Regional Highlight Wilyabrup
  1. Winery of the Month Moss Wood
  2. Best of the Bunch Woodlands Winery, Cullen Wines, Gralyn Estate
  3. Free iPhone App & New Reviews
 
   
 

Corkscore’s Cellar Door Crawl in Margaret River.

  
 

Armed with our iPhones, the Corkscore team set out to Margaret River to pay some of the leading wineries an unannounced visit. In our quest to find the best wines for our users, we diligently tried every single bottle on offer from the following wineries:

Biodynamic vines at Cullen

   
 
The Style File: Margaret River

Our tastebuds were tantalized by these particular styles in Margaret River.

Favourite wine

Best under A$30

Cabernet Sauvignon

Elegant, mint and eucalypt, reminiscent of left bank Bordeaux, those from the Wilyabrup region are among Australia's top Cabernets.

Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
Visit website A$100

Stella Bella Wines Cabernet Merlot 2006
Visit website A$28

Shiraz

Cool climate style driven by white pepper.

Lenton Brae Wines Shiraz 2008
Visit website A$35

Same

Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

Creamy grassy textures with good structure. We found blends dominated by Semillon the most exciting.

Lenton Brae Wines Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2008
Visit website A$22

Same

Chardonnay

Rich and complex style of stonefruits paired with subtle oak. Margaret River is home to some of Australia's top Chardonnays.

Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2006
Visit website A$83

Lenton Brae Southside Chardonnay 2007
Visit website A$22
 
   

Brookland Valley in Wilyabrup

Regional Highlight.

Wilyabrup.

Wilyabrup, the area halfway between Gracetown and Yallingup in Western Australia, is outstanding for Cabernet blends. Is it the Pauillac of Australia? We certainly found Margaret River’s best wineries there, concentrated on the small stretch, including Lenton Brae, Moss Wood, Woodlands Winery, Brookland Valley, Gralyn Estate and Cullen Wines. Many of these top wineries are striving to have Wilyabrup recognised as an appellation. Leeuwin Estate and their top Chardonnay are grown further south.

 
   
 

Winery of the Month.

Moss Wood.

Moss Wood emerged as our favourite winery in Margaret River on Corkscore’s cellar door crawl through the picturesque region and is our Winery of the Month. At a winery that only does tasting by appointment, we arrived fashionably unannounced, but were charmingly led through by winemaker Amanda Shepherdson.

Under her friendly guidance we tasted their entire range, including barrel samples of the 2007 and 2009 flagship Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon. Moss Wood’s second and third labels Ribbon Vale and Amy's were also great at their price points.

Amanda Sheperdson, winemaker at Moss Wood, drawing barrel samples
   




Best of the Bunch.

Woodlands Winery, Gralyn Estate and Cullen Wines were close competitors for the Winery of the Month title.

Woodlands offers an impressive array of red wines. Their top offering is their 'Robert' Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, a masterstroke of a Cabernet blend, with mints, lipstick.

We thought that the Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 held a narrow lead over Woodland’s Robert, if only by a small margin. At A$100 and free delivery the Moss Wood is also slightly cheaper than then Robert at A$105 and A$20 delivery.

Cullen Wines Diana Madeline 2006, pitched at A$105, is among our very top favourites. Also not to be missed: their Kevin John Chardonnay and Mangan, a delicious blend of Malbec, Petit Verdot and Merlot and one of this month’s Corkscore Top User Wines.

Gralyn Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 is an outstanding example from Margaret River; however, at A$300 a bottle on the back of a positive Robert Parker review, it is a tad steep. They also have quite an unorthodox range of sweet red cabernets. Their ports though are highly recommended.

  
   
 

Free iPhone App & New Reviews.

  
 
  • Over 400 new AUS/NZ reviews and 700 wines added
  • FREE iPhone app Corkscore Lite launched
    Directly access your tasting notes and prices from anywhere. Search “Corkscore” in the App Store on your iPhone, or click
    here to download.
 Available in the App Store  
 

Help us build the Corkscore community! If you enjoy Corkscore, please recommend us to your friends. Any issues or suggestions, please send your feedback directly to me.

  
 

Good drinking!

Lars
Corkscore Co-Founder & CEO
 
   
   

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Posted by Lars Herold on 11 August 2009 11:17:00 PM #

Organising & Filtering Your Wine Notes

Did you ever taste a wine that reminded you immediately of another wine from the same region, variety or winery, but you just couldn't recall which one it was?

This is what we built Corkscore's advanced filtering and sorting tools for. Say you want to find out the best Heathcote Shiraz you ever tasted. If you have been diligent in keeping your tasting notes on Corkscore, all you need to do is the following:

  1. Log into your wine review list on Corkscore
  2. Activate the filters on the control pane
  3. Select "Australia, Victoria, Heathcote" from the Region menu
  4. Select "Shiraz" from the Variety/Blend menu
  5. Set the Sort by menu to "Rating"

Voilà, your favourite Shiraz from Heathcote will appear on top of the list!

Have a play with our filter and sorting tools.

Control Pane

  • Turn filter controls on/off
  • Swap between List and Calendar View
  • Wine details – hide/show
  • Sorting order – sort by variety, vintage, region, winery etc

Filter Options

Once you enable filters, you can see the filter pane. You can then filter by:
  • Like/dislike
  • Rating
  • Vintage
  • Winery
  • Region
  • Variety or blend
  • Review status (“new” SMS/Email review or “confirmed”)

Wine and Review Details

Use the control pane to turn on “Details”. Each of your wine notes will then show details such as:

  • Winery name
  • Variety or blend details
  • Country, region, appellation
  • Location where you drank the wine (if the review was entered with the iPhone app)
  • Price (if you entered it)

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Posted by Lars Herold on 6 August 2009 5:06:00 PM #