Phase Two is live!

Okay, so I know some of you have been waiting for this one, and I apologize if it took too long, but it is finally here! When we launched Kosher Wine Database, I laid out a four-phase plan – and Phase 2 is now officially live: The Wine Review Search.

For those who don’t know or don’t remember (no judgment, I barely remember what I wrote last week), the whole point of moving from Kosher Wine Musings / Kosher Wine Unfiltered to this new platform was NOT just to post reviews in a prettier wrapper. It was to build an actual, searchable index of kosher wine reviews — something that could answer “hey, has David written about this wine?” or “what’s a good Israeli red that Avi rated well?” without making you scroll through 18 years of posts and hit Ctrl-F like a maniac.

So — go play with it. It’s right there in the nav: The Wine Review Search. Or click the big gold button on the home page. I made that pretty hard to miss.

What’s in there right now

Actual wine notes of 8,600+ wines reviewed by Avi and me, spanning basically the entire run of both blogs. Every wine has vintage, winery, wine name, tasting notes, and a score (some have QPR scores, some don’t — blogs evolved, we evolved, you’ll see some variation). You can search simply (just type a vintage, a winery, or a wine name), or pop open Advanced to filter by country, color, varietal, QPR WINNERS only, or wines currently in their drinking window. These are the actual wine notes, not links to another post or two or 30.

What’s NOT perfect — and why I’m telling you upfront

Look, 18+ years’ worth of blog posts don’t parse cleanly. The data is really good, but it’s not perfect. Some older entries have incomplete metadata — maybe the country is blank, maybe the varietal isn’t tagged, maybe the QPR score predates my even having QPR scores as a concept. If you use Advanced filters aggressively (“only France, only Rosé, only 2020+”), you WILL miss some wines that should have matched but didn’t because their metadata is incomplete. That’s the truth. I’ve put a note on the Advanced panel to that effect.

The simple search is the reliable one. Type “Leoville” and you’ll get every Leoville we’ve written about. Type “2019” and “Netofa” together and you’ll find them. That part is rock solid.

The advanced filters are a great first pass — especially for discovery, “show me QPR WINNERS from Italy” and so on. But if you’re hunting for a specific wine, a simple search wins every time.

What Search actually does

Unlike the search on the top of the page, the results of this search are actual wine notes. They are mostly accurate. Yes, we have some typos and the like, but overall, the notes you see are what we have on the site. This is something I hope the Premium Members enjoy and value as much as we do!

What’s next — Phases 3 and 4

The next two phases, honestly, depend upon all of you, as we laid out the plan in the Join Us Page. We’re looking for a better way to interact and communicate, and we respect your time. We don’t want to be another WhatsApp or Slack “bird in your ear” or face. We hope the Premium and Newsletter community members will reach out to let us know how you would like Phase 3 to proceed. Are you interested in guided tastings? What about a monthly delivery of curated wines (NO WE WOULD NOT MAKE A PENNY), but again, is all this noise, or is there a real interest?

A quick thank you

None of this would exist without the members who signed up early when this was still a dream. You believed in this dream and jumped on board! It truly drives us, and we hope you enjoy the next phases. Thank you. Seriously.

Now go search. Find something you forgot about. Find something new. Tell me what’s broken — because it will be, somewhere.

Cheers,
David

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Want to try it? → The Wine Review Search

Not a member yet? → Join here