Thank You, Eric Levine and Cellartracker

I made my annual contribution today to Cellratracker, and when I looked, I realized it was my 11th year supporting the platform. I joined back in 2005 and it has been an invaluable way for me to link into the wine experience holistically, meeting the people, hearing their stories about the wines they drink. Between the relationships made here in WB, as well as the great people and learning I have achieved through Cellartracker, I would not be enjoying wine like I am today without them.

I have very strong views and opinions about the negative power and influence of the professional critic. I dislike the model, the business of points and the small cadre of reviewers that affect this hobby and the industry. Conversely, I love, love, love the impact and knowledge that the collective community can impart and share through Cellartracker and for that, I will always hold great respect and appreciation for what Eric has created for me, for many of you that use his platform.

Eric, well done. Keep fostering and promoting the culture of the everyday critic, the power of the people to impact wine, and let’s not forget, to find the bottles we own!

champagne.gif [thankyou.gif]

He has done the wine world a great service with his fantastic product.

Thank you Mr. LeVine, whose name doesn’t rhyme with spleen.

I love Cellartracker. Tonight, however, I’m a little peeved. I just looked and discovered that I only have four vintages of Turley Ueberroth Zin in storage! [swearing.gif]

Cellartracker has been huge for wine collectors. Eric deserves kudos for sure. Especially because lots of other people in his shoes would probably have taken a bunch of VC money and ruined the site through horrible monetization.

I signed up about 6 months after Frank and 5,000 users joined between us. Eric was a client when he was @ Microsoft years before he released CT. He has always been a great person. It is wonderful that he is getting this time to live in Switzerland as the wine advisor to the U.S. Ambassador:)

I just entered my cellar info this week with Eric’s help! Now I know I have too much wine.

Thanks everyone! Thanks also to Dan Polivy, Andrew Hall, Laura Herlacher and Colm Lee all of whom help me make it happen now!

indispensable

For me it a love hate. Open CT and constantly remind how much I’ve spent

Agreed. Without CT I wouldn’t collect wine. The entire wine industry owes Eric a debt of gratitude and beyond.

I’m with you on the value of Cellar Tracker (although I strongly disagree about the utility of crowd-sourced reviews). Eric found a need and filled it brilliantly.

I’m with Neal here - use CT all the time, but composite reviews are of limited use. That said, CT is an indispensable product for this wine consumer.

Big time.

Neal, help me understand…what is a crowd-sourced review?

Frank, not Neal, but I thought what he was trying to say (my paraphrase, and what I agreed with) is that a “composite” 90 point score was of limited value given the fact that you really know nothing about the collective palates/experience of those posting the notes.

In other words, if three folks on CT who have no idea what a Nebbiolo is all about post a TN saying that, for example, the 2001 Conterno Barolo is getting a little long in the tooth, I’m not going to give that “group rating” a lot of weight.

Cellartracker is a great tool. Thanks Eric!

Depends if that’s Giacomo Conterno or Aldo Conterno [stirthepothal.gif]

Just my little rant at the performance of his 1997 Cicala [swearing.gif] - 1st bottle poor in 2007 (unless you like Chocolate/Mocha in your Barolo), the other two bottles OTH 5 years later. The 1998 Bussia Soprana holding up much better but still poor value. I used to be a fan.

Exactly. I come here to praise, CT, and not to bury it, but the notes (and especially the aggregate scores) tell me almost nothing about the wine, any more than a yelp! rating gives me reliable info about a restaurant. I know the handles of a few wise men and women on CT, and will pay particular attention to their comments, but that sort of data fits more comfortably in the “critic” than the “crowd source” category. The most I try to draw from notes from the like of “bigasscellar65” (made up!) is whether a wine is closed or open (and even then . . . )

A lot of ppl also don’t score so the numbers tend to be skewed. One wine I just looked at was a 85. But one person out of 5 put a score down and it was for an oxidized btl. The other four had glowing notes.

+1 – It has been the great enabler to my terrible wine habit! [cheers.gif]

I look for reviews by people I know. So change your handle to N € @ l M o 1 1 € n. I look for reviews by Keith or Frank or Loren or The Count and that tells me something about a wine I am considering. Even when it’s someone whose palate or preferences are different from mine, the TN tells me something useful.

But Eric should be offended by your comparison to YELP. He doesn’t allow wineries to have their best reviews put at the top of the list.