CellarTracker Question - And Another Example of 'Central Coast' Being Overused . . .

[larry_schaffer]

As a follow up to a conversation started on an Arcadian tasting note, I questioned why the Clos Pepe Chardonnay, which is from the esteemed vineyard in the Sta Rita Hills, is designated as ‘California, Central Coast, Sta Rita Hills’, rather than ‘California, Santa Barbara County, Sta. Rita Hills’.

I then asked the question of whether or not a wine from Sonoma or Napa would be considered ‘California, North Coast, AVA’ or not - and sure enough, it is not.

If you pull up a Saxum, it is noted as ‘California, Central Coast, Paso Robles’.

I’m just curious why this is the case - and whether others think this should be changed as I do?

Yes, I am a ‘homer’ for Santa Barbara County, and I am on a bit of a ‘mission’ to ensure that we are not ‘assimilated’ into ‘Central Coast’, which really has no sense of ‘place’ whatsoever since it is so large.

I often ‘joke’ that I opened a Napa Cab one night, but then think maybe it was a Sonoma Cab, and then ultimately think that it’s a Lake County Cab - but then I just say, what the heck, let’s just call it ‘North Coast’ because that should be good enough to ‘distinguish’ it, right?

One would NEVER do this - unless perhaps you’re a grape broker or dealing with ‘bulk wine’. In the ‘real world’ of wine, one would distinguish these different counties . . .

Why is this not the case with Santa Barbara County then?

Slight ‘rant’ over - but really curious to hear your thoughts on this.

Cheers!

[Bill_S]

I just walked my shelves at work and did not spot a single wine label like you described. As someone who has been ITB for the last 15 years I can remember a few like that before a area received AVA status but nothing once it happened.

[larry_schaffer]

Thanks for your input. Nope, the wines are not labeled like that but cellartracker is organizing them in that manner. And it shouldn’t be. That’s my point

[David_Bu3ker]

The problem with CellarTracker in this regard is that someone sets up a wine, wrongly, and it just perpetuates. It’s not so much a CellarTracker problem, as it is a user problem.

[Scott_Jameson]

Have you raised this in the CellarTracker forums ? Seems like that’s the place if you’re looking for a change.

[larry_schaffer]

Actually, everyone that I checked from Santa Barbara County is listed as Central Coast. And the wines that I briefly checked from Paso Robles or listed as Central Coast. The only ones I see listed as North Coast are wines from places like Lake County. You don’t see the same thing happening with Napa or Sonoma. And I do not believe that is because people are labeling them incorrectly. Someone labels a wine as from Santa Rita Hills correctly but the larger area defaults to Central Coast, not too Santa Barbara County. That is the challenge.

[larry_schaffer]

@Scott Jameson

Have you raised this in the CellarTracker forums ? Seems like that’s the place if you’re looking for a change.

Of course not! that is something I will do next. Though I already have sent an email off to Eric.

[dsGriswold]

Andrew is the person that can handle the requests in Wine Data Errors and Corrections along with dupes that are common when wines are miss entered.

[Ken_V]

@D@vid Bu3ker

The problem with CellarTracker in this regard is that someone sets up a wine, wrongly, and it just perpetuates. It’s not so much a CellarTracker problem, as it is a user problem.

But if someone points the error out to them, then they [Andrew] fix the problem. Andrew and I have had long discussions where he is working hard to get the nomenclature correct. I have no doubt that if Larry writes to him, he will fix it.

[Brian_Tuite]

Larry, it’s an inherent flaw with the Cellartracker database. All wines from that area are subregioned Central Coast as seen from the screen shot. Something to take up with Eric Levine.

[Markus_S]

I’ve never gotten the idea of “Central” or “North” Coast. You never, ever see a “Southern Coast”.
Geographically it is broad to the point of being meaningless, why not simply use “California” as an IGT?

[larry_schaffer]

@Markus S

I’ve never gotten the idea of “Central” or “North” Coast. You never, ever see a “Southern Coast”.
Geographically it is broad to the point of being meaningless, why not simply use “California” as an IGT?

That.is my point - though most people continue to use ‘Central Coast’ but never use North Coast.

I Wil reach out to Andrew and see if the database can be changed to reflect this. It really seems to be another case if a ‘bias’ similar to what wine and travel writers continue to do.

Cheers.

[Paul_Gordon]

@larry schaffer

@Markus S

I’ve never gotten the idea of “Central” or “North” Coast. You never, ever see a “Southern Coast”.
Geographically it is broad to the point of being meaningless, why not simply use “California” as an IGT?

That.is my point - though most people continue to use ‘Central Coast’ but never use North Coast.

I Wil reach out to Andrew and see if the database can be changed to reflect this. It really seems to be another case if a ‘bias’ similar to what wine and travel writers continue to do.

Cheers.

For the record Larry, our wines show the same format as yours - USA> California> North Coast> Yorkville Highlands.
So it is not a conspiracy against SB wines.

[David_Bu3ker]

@larry schaffer

@Markus S

I’ve never gotten the idea of “Central” or “North” Coast. You never, ever see a “Southern Coast”.
Geographically it is broad to the point of being meaningless, why not simply use “California” as an IGT?

That.is my point - though most people continue to use ‘Central Coast’ but never use North Coast.

I Wil reach out to Andrew and see if the database can be changed to reflect this. It really seems to be another case if a ‘bias’ similar to what wine and travel writers continue to do.

Cheers.

Arnot-Roberts did a North Coast Syrah.

[Michael_Martin]

@Markus S

I’ve never gotten the idea of “Central” or “North” Coast. You never, ever see a “Southern Coast”.
Geographically it is broad to the point of being meaningless, why not simply use “California” as an IGT?

Winebid uses “South Coast” and some other interesting designations.

California
Central Coast (544)
Central Valley (9)
Napa County (10)
Napa Valley (1,473)
North Coast (391)
San Francisco Bay (3)
San Mateo County (4)
Santa Cruz Mountains (53)
Sierra Foothills (24)
Sonoma (711)
Sonoma County (175)
South Coast (195)
Yolo County (1)

[larry_schaffer]

@Paul Gordon

@larry schaffer

@Markus S

I’ve never gotten the idea of “Central” or “North” Coast. You never, ever see a “Southern Coast”.
Geographically it is broad to the point of being meaningless, why not simply use “California” as an IGT?

That.is my point - though most people continue to use ‘Central Coast’ but never use North Coast.

I Wil reach out to Andrew and see if the database can be changed to reflect this. It really seems to be another case if a ‘bias’ similar to what wine and travel writers continue to do.

Cheers.

For the record Larry, our wines show the same format as yours - USA> California> North Coast> Yorkville Highlands.
So it is not a conspiracy against SB wines.

Paul,

Thanks for this. Not a ‘conspiracy’ but certainly not ‘correct’. And are you ‘happy’ with having your wines categorized as ‘North Coast’? If so, that’s great - not the same here.

Cheers.

[larry_schaffer]

@D@vid Bu3ker

Arnot-Roberts did a North Coast Syrah.

Correct - and Manfred just used California for most of his wines!

That’s the point - if the winery wants to designate their wines as such then they can . . .

Cheers.

[dougwilder]

Larry, as you know for my magazine I do four issues a year. One is called Central Coast as it covers everything South of San Francisco, and another is called North Coast, mainly Sonoma and Mendocino. That is how critics refer to the areas in general. However for the purposes you mention, Larry, I think it is entirely reasonable to be as specific as you want, and I take great care to do it for individual reviews. For space consideration, I typically cite sub-AVA only, (Happy Canyon, Ballard Canyon, Sta. Rita Hills, etc)

[Eric_S_n_y_d_e_r]

I get what Larry’s saying here. It’s an issue of identity and inconsistency. If I search a Napa cabernet, I get this:
USA > California > Napa Valley > St. Helena
My eye skips right past California and settles on Napa Valley.

For Larry and others on the Central Coast, it goes:
USA > California > Central Coast > Sta. Rita Hills
Central Coast tells me just about nothing (as discussed in other threads), and a novice might not know anything about Santa Rita Hills. If I were buying Pinot Noir from the area, I’d care a lot more to see Santa Maria Cty or SBC than just Central Coast.

I see the issue… CT lists only 10 SubRegions in CA:
Napa Valley
Sonoma County
Central Coast
(Blank)
North Coast
Napa / Sonoma (?)
San Francisco Bay
Sierra Foothills
Central Valley
South Coast
Klamath Mountains

CT lists Region (CA), SubRegion, Appellation. So, the fix would be to add a lot more SubRegions?

Disclaimer: I love CellarTracker

[Andrew_Hall]

We have a hierarchy of three levels below country in CellarTracker - Region, Sub-Region, Appellation. This applies across all countries. In the US, Region = State. That means sub-region has to be a larger, hopefully contiguous zone that encloses all the Appellations. In this case, Central Coast is that.

There are cases like above where this breaks down because there are four nesting layers (parts of Australia is another one,) but it is just something we have to live with. We try to have the best, most extensible architecture. It is going to fail to be perfect at times. This is not something we can readily change. Sorry. We don’t intend to belittle any region or appellation. It is just the nature of applying a database scheme across large swathes of data.

Napa/Sonoma is an oddball one that is a trick to enclose Carneros while still having it be related to both Napa and Sonoma. Technically, I could have put in North Coast.

As an aside, please use our forums or send me an email with issues like this. We don’t monitor WB. It is sheer luck that I happened to find this post when I was searching for something else.