To Do

Twice over the past week, people have actually read this blog.  It came as quite a shock, and it is motivating me to step up my game slightly.  So I’m going to outline here a few things that I intend to do to improve this blog.  This post is a bit of a to do list, and of more interest to me than to anyone else who might possibly read it.  Much like this whole blog is a list of my notes on things I’m drinking, and likewise probably of limited interest.

First off, I started titling posts here somewhat randomly.  From now on, if a post has a random title, it’s not about much (like this one).  If it’s about a single wine, that wine will be the title.  If it’s somewhere in between (a tasting of several wines), I’ll try to make it as friendly a title as possible.  I intend to retroactively change titles for existing articles to reflect the wines tasted.  I’m sure that will screw up the millions of Permalinks all over the Interwebs pointing to my site, but better now than in a few months when perhaps three people in a week read the site.  Seriously though, I think to call it search engine optimization would be a bit too grand, but if I’ve written about a wine, apparently some people with an interest in that wine do come looking, and I may as well make that as easy as possible. [DONE - All posts about a single bottle of wine have that wine as a title.]

[Funnily enough, having gone through and updated the titles, and therefore the Permalinks, I realized the only place that would actually be linked into any back content on the blog would be links I posted on Facebook.  Sigh.  So to the seven people who "Like" me, sorry about that.]

Second, I think I’m going to impose a region, grape, producer, glass-in-front-of-me format as much as possible.  I tend toward the more orderly side of the alignment spectrum, so it’s not a big deal, but I think it may allow some more consistency in the postings.  Grape and region may need less and less attention at the point where I’m writing up my 50th Pinot Noir, and my 100th Adelaide Hills wine, but at that point I’ll likely build up a collection of pages (as opposed to posts) about them and I can start linking. [Not going back retroactively, all posts moving forward about a single wine are that format (mostly), so DONE]

Third, I’m going to get everything I post here onto the corresponding Facebook page (oh, and get a decent profile picture for that account).  Up until now, I just cross post things there when I remember, which is not as often as I post here. [DONE]

Fourth, I’m going to have an image of some sort for every post.  And it’s going to be in the upper left of every post.  [DONE] And they’re all going to be the medium-size instead of the thumbnails I have now.  [DONE] And I’m going to go back and make that the case for every post.  And I’m going to figure out how all the various text fields associated with the image are displayed or not, including Title, Alternative Text, Caption, and Description.  Phew. [OK, title is what you get when you mouse over an image, and on an image page (image in an actual page, not just as the page) it is the title at the top.  Caption turns up below a thumbnail, below the image in a gallery, and in all caps under the image on an image page.  Description I've only seen on an image page, below the text for caption in normal case.  I think I'll probably only see the alt text if I don't download images, so i'm not going to worry about them.  Oh, and annoying dashes are part of the theme I'm using.  Calling that one DONE.]

Fifth, I’m going to try to spread the love around a bit in terms of wine regions.  I’ve made a start with some Iberian work of late, but looking at the map I’ve not had a single wine from Germany since I started writing, nor Chile, and the USA has been woefully neglected except for that awesome bottle of Ridge Monte Bello. [16 countries covered, ongoing.]

Sixth, I’m going to link a bit more, particularly to other posts within my existing content.  So if I mention a post from last week or last year, I’ll link to it.  Likewise, when I’m writing up my posts, I’m often clicking around online to dig up information about the producer or region.  I usually link to the producer, but from now on, I’m going to try to find a way to link in further reading as well.  One of my best sources of information is of course the Oxford Companion to Wine from Jancis Robinson, but I can’t link directly to OCW entries as such links are only useful to subscribers.  However, I will link where I can, and I’ll try to keep my eye out for free articles on Jancis’ site that are relevant. [Ongoing.]

Seventh, posts from when I was studying (or when I was meant to be studying) have a fair amount of study note cruft before getting to the wine.  Rather than have a picture way up top, if there is a way branch off the study bit into its own post, I think that will make things a bit cleaner.  However, I do need to preserve the chronology.  Worst case scenario (if I’ve passed) it to just dump the study stuff, either through deletion or onto its own area away from drinking notes.  [Not bothering - older posts not worth it, so DONE.]

Finally, I’m going to come back to this post from time to time and update it as far as what’s done and further things that need doing.  I’ll be able to keep track, but I won’t trouble anyone who stumbles upon the site.  Yes, I could just keep this offline somewhere, but the same could be said for everything I’ve ever posted or will ever post.  [Ongoing - update in square brackets.]