I have performed website appraisal on 375 sites and I have ranked only the top 100.

Herebelow is an analysis of the results.

The big guns

In the fourth quarter of any year, many people look for food or wine information on the Web. This primarily benefits the established brands. The 4 sites that gained most valuation this quarter year are those the 4 top sites.

More generally a few sites dominate the pack. This is partly due to their early appearance on the Web (Wine Spectator, Wine lovers page). It is also partially because they have the weight of offline publications behind them (Wine Spectator, the New York Times, Wine Advocate, Dr. Vino).

In the last few years a few authors made their way to popularity. They steadily rose by virtue of:

• producing consistently good content that people want to consume;
• and being regularly cited by their peers.

Diversity

The recent holiday season has favoured the big sites. You can expect challengers to rise in the next installment in April.
In the last few years the web offer has immensely diversified. Everybody and their wine supplier now has a blog. There now are many quality wine critics who comment on line. Some belong to the mainstream media, others not. You can have your voice too and this is good for everybody.

So go on a reading journey by browsing the list of 100 best wine sites!

How to participate

Websites are automatically included in the contest as soon as I learn of their existence. To be eligible to the next issue of the Cellarer wine directory, the below conditions must be met:

1. The main topic should be wine.
2. Producing estates and wine sellers are excluded. Some of them run wonderful websites but the type of information is different.

If you disagree with the directory criteria, please comment below or e-mail me.

Once the above conditions are fulfilled the websites are also considered for addition to another tool: a search engine dedicated to wine and food.

Here are the metrics I use for rating the wine sites. You can follow the directory evolution by subscribing to the feed on websites .

Establishment vs. bloggers

3 websites clearly stand out as the biggest wine hubs: the Wine Spectator, the Wine lovers page and Robert Parker’s forum. This in part is explained by their quality. It is also explained by the long time they have been known by wine enthusiasts.

The top tier is not going away. The biggest valuation increases this year have been for the top 8 sites:

1. the Wine Spectator,
2. the Wine lovers page,
3. Robert Parker’s,
4. The Pour,
5. Vinography,
6. Wines & Vines,
7. The Winedoctor
8. and Dr. Vino.

Having an off-line reputation clearly helps. This is easiest for the mainstream media — as illustrated by the presence in the top four of the Wine Spectator, the New York Times and Robert Parker.

In the last few years the wine web offer has immensely diversified. There now are many quality wine critics who blog on line. The Top 100 attempts to highlight writers that you should discover. Only the “better” 25% of the websites are shown. Well, “better” here is not an opinion but an evaluation of which sites are more popular.

What other trends can you see from the rankings?

How to participate

Websites are automatically included in the contest as soon as I learn of their existence. To be eligible to the next issue of the Cellarer wine directory, the below conditions must be met:

1. The main topic should be wine.
2. Producing estates and wine sellers are excluded. Some of them run wonderful websites but the type of information is different.

If you disagree with the directory criteria, please comment below or e-mail me.

Once the above conditions are fulfilled the websites are also considered for addition to another tool: a search engine dedicated to wine and food.

Here are the metrics I use for rating the wine sites. You can follow the directory evolution by subscribing to the feed on websites .

So lie back, relax, and enjoy my comments on the results.

Newcomers

Some sites are appearing in this top list. Last quarter their scores were lower than those of the 140 top ones. They include:

• Wine whore
• Drinkster
• VWM
• For the Love of Port
• 89 Project
• The Wine Knows
• Loves Wine
• The Wine Connoisseur

Off-line support

You may notice that half the biggest websites are supported — and promoted — by off-line operations. They are Web appendices of successful non-Internet ventures: the Wine Spectator, The Pour, eRobertParker, Avenue Vine, Wine Enthusiast, Jancis Robinson, Natalie McLean.

USA dominates

Most of the top websites stem from operations based in the US. The majority of the listed sites are written from that country. The following facts may contribute: the USA are still the country the most present on the Web, they still dominate the English-speaking culture and they are on a trend to become the top wine drinking country in the world.

Foreigners

So here is a list of all the websites which are pure players (without offline operations), in the Top 140 and not based in an English-speaking nation:

• Vino Wire (Italy);
• Wine Terroirs (France);
• French Scout (France);
• Burgundy-report (Switzerland);
• Catavino (Spain);
• Wines Info (China);
• Grape Wall of China (China).

How to participate

Websites are automatically included in the contest as soon as I learn of their existence. To be eligible to the next issue of the Cellarer wine directory, the below conditions must be met:

1. The main topic should be wine.
2. Producing estates and wine sellers are excluded. Some of them run wonderful websites but the type of information is different.

If you disagree with the directory criteria, please comment below or e-mail me.

You can follow the directory evolution by subscribing to the feed on websites .

Once the above conditions are fulfilled the websites are also considered for addition to another tool: a search engine dedicated to wine and food.

Herebelow is an overview of the results.

A comprehensive pool of candidates

The number of websites that I retrieve metrics for is 500. This list is close to being complete: it includes almost all the websites that qualify.

The small against the big

I chose to not include magazines, that is sites that are written by many contributors. Press and firms have their means of getting known. I’d rather promote unique voices (blogs). So the top food blogs is a convenient tool for getting to know prominent culinary authors. Please tell me if you spot an item in the list that would have more than 2 contributors.

How to participate

Websites are automatically included in the contest as soon as I learn of their existence. To be eligible to the next issue of the Top food blogs, the below conditions must be met:

1. The main topic should be food.
2. The articles must be written by one or two persons (not a team) — so as to screen firms.

You can follow the ranking evolution by subscribing to the feed on websites .

Elsewhere

There are ways to discover food-related sites. You can browse the list of Times Online guide to 50 food blogs; You can also take the tour at Cellarer search, a search engine dedicated to wine and food.

Web hosting

Your website will be accessed from anywhere on the Internet but it actually will reside somewhere: in a computer connected to the Internet. This step is described in the recipe to cook a deft website.

Set-up the website

Open an account at the hosting company. Download an FTP client.
Choose files to wrap up the PHP script. An option is a simple file named index.php. It would start with a few HTML lines.
Another option is to consider a CMS (content management system). You will interact with this software to manage your website. Wordpress is an excellent CMS in that it is both engaging and tremendously enabling.
In your FTP client upload your PHP file or the Wordpress files.

API key

Obtain an application ID from Yahoo.

Search engine PHP script

This PHP script will take a query and gather search engine results. You can change the way these results are displayed. If you learn some PHP you can even transform the results (or recombine them).
What the PHP script does:

• display a form where the user will enter her query;
• capture the query (named $secure_query);
• call Yahoo BOSS;
• receive and process the Yahoo BOSS results;
• display the results.

How to copy it

This PHP script can be placed in any file named something.php. It can notably be inserted into a PHP blog platform. I would advise you to consider Wordpress which is one of the best blog engines and whose license is the same.

You may reuse and propagate this script with this license:
the GPL v2.

Usage: launch a text editor, open your HTML or PHP file, copy and paste this script.

Demo

A version of this script runs if you trigger the search box at the top of this page.

I will publish something similar for the food business. It will show the 100 most popular food blogs. So come back here in June.

I am already working on this project. This gives me a view of the food blogging field and enables me to spot interesting authors. I read them and incorporate some of them into the food engine. Cellarer is a search engine with a bias: it prefers lesser-known authors over big firms. Type any food-related query into the top box and you will obtain custom answers: from niche experts.
Cellarer search is about quality related to the niche — which is food, cooking and wine. It takes you to a tour of interesting bloggers. Here are examples: caribbean food, chardonnay, California.

It takes money

I fail to note a little winery in the list. This might be because only the big operations can afford to pay for web development.

Firms pay for looks

Conversely companies pay for a beautiful picture. It seems many big wineries buy projects on their visual appeal and not on their usability. The side effects include:

• bad navigation,
• lack of search functionality,
• hardly readable content,
• loading problems,
• uselessness on mobiles.

There should be a user department in companies. What do you think?

I have worked long to improve this web engine. And the new version is now running! The primary difference is the migration from the Google index to the Yahoo! index. I will not detail how Google was not so good. Instead I’ll explain how the new version is good.

Related searches are suggested, in the food and wine domains.

The results shown come from a wide spread of sites. It is not restricted to well known websites. Some blogs from the Cellarer community show up — much more often than on mainstream search engines.

The catalogue of returned websites is very varied. It also includes recent sites.

The look and feel is beautiful and easy to use. Try it!

In one month, I’ll explain how you can do the same.