Dear readers,

I’m quickly approaching the one year anniversary of the site and wanted to take a moment to look back over 2009 as well as announce the upcoming newsletter schedule and pending site updates. This time last year I was neck deep in HTML programming, trying to figure out the best place to host the site, what it should be called, how it should look and all of the other tiny decisions that you never think about until you have to make them. Little did I know the time, effort and money this endeavor would take but it has been a labor of love!

Since I’m an engineer at heart and dig statistics/metrics, here’s how the site has fared over the past 11 months.

Site traffic:

Measuring total traffic is always a wag but I like individual visits as opposed to other statistics. I’m currently seeing just shy of 300 visits a day and last Month was the highest yet. The below graph shows the monthly totals from 2009 and overall growth from January through November is over 600%.

FIGURE 1: Site visits

Tasting notes:

The database has just under 2,000 Rhone tasting notes (I’m working hard to increase this!) and database searches are the fastest growing function on the site. The month of November clocked in with over 15 thousand searches.

FIGURE 2: Database Searches

Newsletters:

My first newsletter came out in August and while it’s tough to read much from two data points, here it is anyways:

Issue 1: New releases from the south of France

• Posted: August 1st, 2009
• Wine reviews: 240
• Total downloads: 2,344

Issue 2: The Rhone Rangers of California

• Posted: November 1st, 2009
• Wine Reviews: 340
• Total downloads: 4,196

I can’t tell if more of you are interested in Rhone Rangers of if it’s simply more people know about the site.

Newsletter schedule

Going forward into 2010, the newsletter schedule will be as follows:

• February: France/Spain
• May: Australia
• August: Chateauneuf du Pape
• November: Rhone Rangers from the United States

I’m already hard at work on both the February and May newsletters. The February issue will cover a wide range of regions including:

• Southern Rhones: Any ‘07 Chateauneufs I missed in Issue 1. I’ve been drinking my fair share of these and simply love the vintage. The wines show beautiful purity, fresh acidity and amazing fruit. The top wines show best with a couple hours of air. Cotes du Rhone Villages: Gigondas, Lirac, Rasteau, Vacqueyras & Cotes du Rone. These were sorely under represented in my first newsletter. In addition to covering more of these wines in this issue, my yearly trip to Chateauneuf will be extended to add more visits and notes from these villages so expect the coverage to increase going into 2010.
• Northern Rhones
• Languedoc-Roussillon: Distribution in the states is limited on these but I’m trying hard to cover a good number of these.
• Rhone releases from Spain

Recent Updates

I’ve made the following updates in the last week:

• Mailing list: If you’re interested in emails for new issues or site updates, please subscribe on the front page. I promise not to fill your inbox with emails.
• Donations: In order to increase the coverage I’m able to provide in the newsletters, I’m now accepting donations. Please consider donating and every penny will go directly to supporting this site. As I’ve said in my newsletters, I’m completely independent and this site is 100% free and contains no advertisements. You can donate using paypal HERE and I’m working to integrate the donation process into this site as well.

Up and Coming

• CellarTracker Integration: The big news will be the integration of the notes on this site with Eric LeVine’s CellarTracker site. I’m a huge fan of cellartracker and can’t recommend Eric’s site enough.  To support the integration, this site will move towards a login/user based interface.  I’ve already started work on this and my goal is roll it out early in 2010.
• Enhanced search features:  I’ve been saying this for awhile now but it’s going to happen!  Search by region, producer and importer will roll out in late winter or earlier.
• Wine prices: I’m putting bottle prices into the newsletters but as of yet, haven’t rolled them into the database.  I plan on working on a way to get current retail prices displayed.

And that’s all folks!  I want to thank you for your continued support, feedback and recommendations!

Here’s to a rocking 2010!

Jeb Dunnuck
www.TheRhoneReport.com

New Tasting Note Search Feature:

To help with the number of database misses on tasting notes, I’ve implemented a drop down menu on the tasting notes search forms (both on the tasting notes page and the search at the top of each page.)  Simply type a portion of the domaine name and then select from the drop down list.  Currently, the dynamic menu only looks over the wine name and not the vintage so if searching for a specific vintage, I recommend searching on the domaine name and then selecting the desired vintage from the results page.  Searching by vintage still works as it has in the past.

I’ll be working to allow the menu to work with vintages in the near future.  In the mean time, let me know how the new menu is working or if there are any issues.  If you have suggestions on ways to improve the site, or if you’d like a review on a specific wine, please let me know via jeb@TheRhoneReport.com and I’ll do my best to accommodate.

Thanks for reading!

- Jeb