The QUICK SEARCH at the top of the screen is easy to use. Start typing any vintage, producer and/or wine and as you type you will see options available to you for wines that are IN the Database. You will see up to the top 60 matches listed. From there you can fine tune-your search. Note that if Allen reviewed the same wine 5 times, it may be listed 5 times in the dropdown list. This is a great tool when you are looking up a specific wine. By typing “1990 meo camuzet parantoux” or “1990 camuzet paran” you save time and don’t have to enter “meo” or “camuzet” or “meo camuzet” in the producer field, select “1990” from the vintage field, or enter “parantoux” in the wine name field. Just enter the info in the Quick Search field and hit enter on your keyboard and you will see all results in the chart below.
- After typing in the QUICK SEARCH field, just hit the ENTER key on your keyboard to see your results (or select from the dropdown list, although more detailed results including score, drinking window, etc. will be shown in a chart if you hit ENTER). If a wine does not appear, use the Advanced Search to verify you didn’t miss it. If it still does not appear, it has not been reviewed.
- Using more search criteria will give you more refined results. Simply entering a VINTAGE will give you a very wide range. Entering a VINTAGE and PRODUCER helps to limit your search results. Entering VINTAGE, PRODUCER and WINE NAME – i.e. 1990 Coche Corton – provides the tightest results.
- Do not enter “Domaine” or “Maison” or “Château” – it is too limiting. Many producers have both a “Maison” and a “Domaine”. Do not limit your results.
- Do not enter “les” or “aux” since these change for each producer.
Here are several examples:
In the image at the right, I’ve just entered a producer – “rousseau” – and 50 options have appeared in the dropdown list. I can hit ENTER on the keyboard to get the most detailed results, or select from the 50 listed or narrow my search using other fields. Results in the dropdown list are sorted first by year, then wine, then producer.
If I just want a specific producer, which eliminates wines with the producer name in them (i.e. Clos Rousseau by Domaine Cyrot-Buthiau, in the first example), I can narrow the search by typing “armand rousseau”. Before I even finish typing, options start to appear. I can select a wine from this dropdown list or it is best to hit ENTER on the keyboard after typing “Armand Rousseau” so I see all of the results in a detailed table below.
You can fine-tune your search by adding additional criteria:
If I enter only a vintage, such as 1990, that doesn’t set enough parameters for a search.
If I enter a vintage and producer, I again get a long list. Only the first 50 show on the screen. Adding more search criteria in the optional filter fields will fine-tune the search.
If I enter a vintage, producer and wine name (such as “2005 mugnier musigny”), I get a complete list of all 11 wines reviewed that meet my search criteria.
I can select one of them – or if I hit ENTER after options appear in the dropdown menu, all 11 wines will appear in the Database Results table at the bottom of the screen, with the score, drinking window and more information displayed. On the far right of the table, I can select which ones I want to view or compare. Once I’ve selected the wines to compare, I can click the gray VIEW COMPARE button at the bottom of the table (not shown here) to read Allen’s reports.
To learn more about how to compare wines, click here.
Important notes and helpful hints
- You never have to input accents or characters such as é, ô, â, ç, etc.
- Do not enter “les” or “aux” since these change for each producer.
- Less is more: Do not enter “Domaine” or “Maison” or “Château” in the Producer field – it will be
too restrictive and limit your results. - And remember, this is Burgundy! Look at the example to see how confusing things can be! Let’s look up a “gros” wine… As soon as I enter “gros” in the producer field of the ADVANCED SEARCH, many many options appear (see image at right). These can be extremely confusing, because there are so many family/producer combinations. Still, the dropdown feature will get you closer to what you are looking for. You can then narrow your search from a wide variety of options.