About AllAmericanWineries ™
AllAmericanWineries ™ is the culmination of my
lifelong love of wine. I grew up in California, just north of San Francisco
and spent my "summer of love" exploring the wineries in Napa and Sonoma
Counties, and driving the winding roads running east/west between the main
north/south highways. In my 20s, I began to visit wineries in the remainder of California.
I expanded my horizons further north to wineries in Oregon and Washington while
visiting friends and relatives in those two states. I
visited wineries in Texas when I lived there from 1983 to 1989, as well as wineries in
Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma during
my travels. When I moved to the northern Virginia suburbs
near Washington, DC, I discovered a number of quality of wines in the birthplace
of American winemaking in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.
In 1996, I spent a week visiting the wineries in the
Bordeaux and St. Emilion regions of France. During the past 35 years, I
have
visited over 400 wineries in 25 states. I have spoken with winery owners, helped them with pruning, cutting,
picking, crushing, bottling, and (my personal favorite) tasting. I've helped
disgorge and taste a brand new sparkling brut wine with a side of fresh strawberries after walking through 10 inches of new snow to get to the cellar. I've sampled
Cabernet Sauvignon right from the oak aging cask along with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies so warm my hands
were covered with melted chocolate when I was done. I agree with Louis
Pasteur (or was it Galileo?), who opined
that "Wine is sunlight, held together by water."
In July 2000, I retired after a
30-year career with the U.S. Government, and began searching for wineries
to visit during my retirement travels. I quickly discovered that most of the nation-wide
Internet winery directories were not as complete as they inferred. I examined thirteen
nation-wide Internet sites that claimed to offer a complete listing of wineries in
the United States, and found them to be less than adequate for my traveling
needs. They might pick
a single source for their winery listings, load the data onto their site, slap on
some advertising banners for revenue, and go on to another project. Seeing a
need for a truly complete listing, I began a project to identify all East Coast
wineries. My research revealed that these
other sites listed only 1% to 80% of the wineries in states east of the
Mississippi River. Some sites
had not
been updated in over a year, and did not contain new wineries or contained listings for wineries no longer in business.
One site had a bad link to their home page (or were no longer in business).
One site had an unreadable search results page. Three sites returned fewer
than 1% of the wineries east of the Mississippi River, one returned less than
10% of the wineries, and one returned less than 20% of the wineries. One of the
most attractive sites lists only 22% of the 750+ eastern U.S. wineries! One of the most complete
sites returned slightly more than 80% of eastern U.S. wineries, but the listing for
more than 40 states was
in alphabetical sequence by winery name, not segregated by state, making it extremely difficult
to locate wineries in a given state. Only one (a commercial site) approaches
the comprehensive listing compiled here.
After more than four months of full-time initial research in
2001, AllAmericanWineries
™ identified and indexed
or linked to over 1,800 wineries in the United States. If a state-specific winery board or state
winery trade association appeared to have a comprehensive index of all wineries in
their state, I
provided a link to their site. This enables you (the
wine-loving traveler) to locate most of the wineries in those linked states, while I verify that the
information in their directory meets the quality and completeness standards of AllAmericanWineries
™.
Finally, when visiting a state, I generally want to do more than just taste wine.
Assuming that you, too, have multiple interests, you will find a link to that state's Tourism Office at the bottom of
each search results page.
The following goals reflect the difference
between AllAmericanWineries ™ and other nation-wide Internet winery
directories:
1. Quality and Quantity: I have spoken with the owners
and managers of many of the wineries
listed on
this site during my research and travels. Other directories fail
to regularly update their
information. As a responsible site owner, AllAmericanWineries
™ checks links to indexed wineries on a regular basis
(quarterly is reasonable), and provides visitors the ability to report
the occasional "broken link," so the information may be passed along to the winery for repair.
It is in everyone's best interest to have complete and accurate links to wineries.
2. Research and Accuracy: Some nationwide
directory
sites mis-identify names of listed wineries, or contain typographical errors
in addresses or telephone numbers (especially telephone Area Codes). Some
sites have typographical errors in the links to a listed winery, which results in
your not being able to link to a winery of interest. My 30+ years of experience as an
investigator has given me the experience and knowledge to retrieve information from
wineries, government, and public domain sources (including the Internet and
various trade associations). I network
with winery owners, officers of state winery associations, employees of state
regulatory agencies, as well as members of the
American Vintners Association. I cross-reference and compare multiple sources of information, and talk to the winery owner or manager
to resolve
conflicting data. I regularly forward erroneous information to webmasters of existing winery sites for correction. I take the time to look in all the nooks and crannies to find a winery if
it is in business. AllAmericanWineries ™ makes available to each winery a copy of the record in our database for
their review, and updates the database within three working days as
needed.
3. Attention to Detail: During my
Government career,
I was noted for being a detail-oriented manager. That philosophy is an important part of
this new venture. The end result is a complete and accurate database of
wineries compiled and indexed by AllAmericanWineries ™ that ultimately benefits you, the
traveling wine lover.
4. No Value Judgments or Opinions:
While conducting the research for this site, I was asked if I was going to have
tasting notes or recommendations for the wineries which I have visited.
The answer is a resounding, "NO!" I am by no means a wine snob.
I have tasted Dom
Perignon champagne only once in my life (in 1998 at a wine/dinner party, brought by someone with deeper
pockets than mine). It *was* a wonderful champagne, but way out of my
price range. I have been known to drink white wines with meat, and red wines with fish.
Everyone's taste varies, and what works for me does nothing for others. While I prefer dry full bodied
wines with very low residual sugar or brut champagnes and sparklers, many of my friends drink sweeter wines.
It would not be fair to you if I were to rate a winery or their wines poorly just because they made wines that
were not high on my personal taste list. I have committed to provide you
with a complete listing of wineries. You may then visit any or all of them and make your
own decision.
Regardless of the differences in our personal tastes, however, I believe that wine in moderation leads to an enjoyment of life not
offered by most other beverages. I also support responsible drinking and
use of a designated driver on tasting trips to wineries. On
my limited retiree budget, I
look for what I call a great quality/price value (QPV) wine. I rejoice when I find a
great QPV wine for under $20. And nothing beats a mimosa on
Sunday morning when you snag a good bottle of champagne or sparkling wine for $10-$15!
AllAmericanWineries ™ was designed to be complete, fast-loading (there no fancy images, flash
graphics, scripts, banners or pop-up windows that slow down your view), intuitive, and (perhaps most important) user-friendly.
The birth
of AllAmericanWineries ™ as a new winery directory and locator for a new millennium was a natural outgrowth of my wanting to share
the results of my research with you. so you can locate almost all the wineries in a state or
region (not just
10% or 50% or 80% of the total), and to do so in a non-commercial environment. So once again, welcome! Browse this site and find
your own hidden gems. AllAmericanWineries ™ is a work in process, undergoing constant revision and
updates to ensure you the utmost in accuracy and completeness.
Calistoga!!
Bob H.
Pinnacle, NC
Return to the AllAmericanWineries Home Page
Proceed to the Locate Wineries by State Page