Wine Questers - Site Features

What if most of the wineries were online in the same place?

What if most of the tasters joined them?

Technically this is easy to accomplish. Tasters and wineries benefit.

Then why not? The opportunities for tasters and wineries are incredible.

Here are some of the benefits and this list doesn't include interesting new business models and other ideas in development by vintners and us:

Search and discover - We have the most comprehensive winery search available. Wine Questers is a search engine with structured data - profiles. Google and others are search engines with unstructured data - Web pages. Structured data can be searched effectively and Web pages can't.

WineQuesters.com is that critical interface between tasters and tasting rooms and winery Web sites. It is a database that the members can keep current on their own. This is a huge benefit to tasters and wineries.

Wineries can list dozens of features that aren't available on their Web sites or through other media. Sort and select by varietal, family friendly, dog friendly, trophy landscaping, architecture, ambiance, user ratings and reviews, picnic areas, and dozens more criteria. Now tasters have the information to easily and quickly craft the best wine tasting road trips for them!

And Wine Questers happens to be much more!

Features for wine tasters
Features for wineries

Features for wine tasters:

GPS accurate maps - We have drove to and GPS mapped over 600 California wine tasting rooms that are located in well-known regions and open to the public on a regular basis. Almost every online map uses geo-coded street addresses, which as we all know can be a long way from the actual location.
Winery and wine ratings and reviews - Tasters can rate winery features and review their experience to help others sort through the maze of wineries and find one that will meet their expectations. Wineries can put their wines online for tasters to review.
Communicate, share, learn - It is not only the wine but the people along the trail that create quality wine tasting road trip adventures. Meet the people right here!
- Forums - Ask questions about the regions, wineries, wines, or share information.
- Groups - Join or start a group to bring together people who share passions or interests.
- Events - Plan your road trips and invite your friends.
- Blog - Easily blog and let your friends know about your winery adventures.
Suggested day routes - With most regions having 30 or more wineries to select from, where do you start? We've selected four wineries in each region to help tasters begin their adventure. They are selected to give tasters a diverse experience on that first day and to move them around the region so it becomes familiar.
Directly connect to wineries - Become a winery friend and stay connected to their activities and promotions without the financial obligation of a wine club membership. As wineries become more active on this site tasters will find increasing opportunities that aren't available anywhere now.
More than just an online platform - We are planning movies and a Wine Questers convention. There will be exciting opportunities to participate! Tasters and wineries, working together, have all the resources to be creative. Why not a Wine Questers Convention? Why not make our own movies for the Web? Will "Sideways" be the defining wine country movie? We can do better.

Features for wineries:

A scattered and disorganized market - Tasters and wineries are scattered all over the Web. This costs everyone time and money and constrains the market potential. Think about the benefits of wineries physically locating near each other. One online network accomplishes the same thing, just differently.
A platform, not typical media - No other Web site or print media has all of the features tasters need in one place and integrated with the wineries. This unique platform puts tasters and wineries in direct contact with each other like never before, and we are only getting started. The home page is a dashboard into the world of wine tasting. The Wine Questers platform contains the tools AND the business processes for powerful marketing with extensive reach at little or no cost - and wineries have more control than any other option. Tasters benefit with more exciting options than before.
Winery profiles - Wineries currently promote themselves with a variety of methods. However, none offer the details to answer most of the questions that tasters have, including the winery Web sites. No other Web site or other media includes the ability to search through this vast sea of information with the ease of WineQuesters.com. Winery profiles are structured data that can be searched. Once the tasters select the wineries they wish to investigate then they can go to the Web sites for more information. Finally, your Web site will escape from the maze of Web searches and the sites with long lists of links.
Wine and winery ratings and reviews - Many vintners requested a wine ratings and reviews feature that will let their customers rate their wines. Specifically, they want to escape the yolk of Parker and the wine magazines. Let your customers tell other tasters why they are your customers. It doesn't get any better. Worried about winery ratings? It is happening on other sites anyway. With a platform you can directly address problems and fix them quickly. Try doing that with media.
Promoting your winery - Wine Questers is a platform for wineries to promote their products, knowledge, features, and events.
- Searchable profiles with all the data for the winery in one place is far more effective than isolated Web sites or other media sources.
- Market your assets for a better return on investment. Whether you have a great picnic area, outstanding view, trophy landscaping, winery dogs, or stunning architecture you now have a platform designed to market these features like never before. Check the relevant boxes in your profile and add photos to your album. Help tasters find you! Until Wine Questers it has been an incredible struggle for tasters to find the features they want.
- Advertising is available of course and we will be implementing that option in 2009. This is the only option that costs money at this time.
- Lead or participate in a special interest group that is relevant to your winery. Get known personally by your market.
- Profile friends expands your reach beyond your wine club. Offer your winery friends something interesting. Not everyone who is interested in your winery can join your wine club.
- Answer Questers' questions in the forums. Help them understand something and in return they know about your winery. The more you are helpful then they more they will know you personally.
- Blog on a topic that is important to your winery. Start a blog from your profile or we can add your existing blog to your profile.
- Post your events to the calendar. Sure, there are a variety of winery event calendars on the Web and in print that tasters can refer to, but on Wine Questers you directly post your activities and have complete control of the content and who sees it. Why should tasters hunt around for these other calendars? All association and winery events for all regions on one site.
- Increase exposure with the Dashboard. Recent activity in the forums, blogs, profiles, events, and wiki are displayed on the home page dashboard for more exposure. The more active wineries will have the most exposure, and tasters benefit.
- Optimize for search engines. All of these activities will help optimize your Web site in the search engines and make it easier for tasters to find your site. This is some of the best SEO - Search Engine Optimization - and it is free!
- Set up unorganized activities such as geo-caching games or simple multi-winery activities. Limited to the number of events you can host? Try low cost non-events.
- Post your special knowledge in a wiki article so it can be found on the Web and on the Wine Questers site.
- Link your videos to your profile from YouTube or other hosting sites.
Control tasting room traffic - Features will be added by 2010 that will let tasting room managers control the traffic to the tasting rooms by the hour.
New business models - During our field work in late 2007 we met with dozens of winery owners. Several recognized that Wine Questers is a platform, not media, and thought of new business models they could launch. We can easily customize features to make those models possible.
Save money - Free direct integration with tasters around the world. What could be better? To keep it low cost we ask that wineries promote the site in their tasting rooms.
Save time - Overall, Wine Questers will save you time promoting your business and generating tasting room traffic and wine sales online and off. This powerful platform will work for you day and night like media can never do.
Create with tasters - Together tasters and wineries have all the resources to make independent movies for the Web and have fun doing it. Think about the product placement opportunities! We can put together a Wine Questers Convention.
Create wines for niche markets - Vintners frequently complain that they are stuck with the Parker view of wines. Wineries usually create for a mass market with the current business model. With the Wine Questers platform you are free to find your niche by creating a group and then producing for them. The shotgun approach to marketing is no longer the only approach available.
Additional features - It seems that we have responded to every request from vintners, wine makers, and tasting room staff for site features and information options in checkboxes and such. We doubt that the ideas will end soon. This platform can be quickly modified to incorporate the latest advances in business and marketing processes.
The tasters will come - With most wineries actively online at Wine Questers.com the tasters will come by the tens of thousands, or even millions. Only our platform model, not media, provides powerful features and processes at basically no cost but your time.
Help move the wine industry into Web 3.0 - Web version 1.0 is media and shopping carts. Web 2.0 is online networking, user-generated content, and collaboration tools. Web 2.0 is all the rage now. Web 3.0 is the development of new business models and processes with Web 2.0 technologies to lower costs and increase productivity and effectiveness. Wine Questers is the first Web 3.0 platform and the wine industry can be the first Web 3.0 industry. Why wait?
Much more is planned. Some are still a trade secret but we can disclose the following:
- A Wine Questers convention. Much more fun and more interesting than a typical tasting format like ZAP or Family Winemakers tastings.
- Advanced mobile applications that will stun the industry and tasters. GPS maps on a cell phone are archaic compared to what we are developing. No, not just GPS mapping. We are developing revolutionary new business processes on top of the technology.