The Home of Renowned Tasting

January is a holiday month and should be fairly quiet but we did all right. The numbers are actually a little lower than they should be because my stats aggregator chucked a wobbler for one day. i.e visits would be about 64,028 if you took the daily average. I also put in some software to stop all the idiot comment spam robots from even looking at the site - so they are no longer counted in the stats. Hope this is of passing interest to the curious. I do like a nice graph myself.

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Right then. I have downloaded the entries and worked up a spreadsheet containing the guesses for Room A and Room B for each of our lovely contestants.

The formula for deciding the winner is -
Magic Number =ABS(384-R1)+ABS(628-R2) where R1 and R2 are the guesses for each room. The closest number to zero wins.

The winners are
1) Greg D with 84
2) Courage with 192
3) Ray with 202
4) Gazmick with 220

I’ll be contacting the winners in order so they can choose their prize.

Thanks to all for entering.

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To celebrate our first birthday we have put together a mighty selection of Winorama’s top rating wines for the year. These wines have all been graciously supplied by the wineries involved and we would like to thank them not only for their generosity but also for their support of the website over the past year. Hooray! The selection criteria included that the wines be commercially available at present but we think that every wine here is an absolute beauty. Each one has something quite special to offer. There are four fabulous prizes up for grabs -

Number One - Six of the best
Taylors St Andrew Riesling 2001
Tyrrells Vat 1 Semillon 1999
De Bortoli Yarra Valley Reserve Chardonnay 2004
Hillcrest Premium Pinot Noir 2004
Seppelt Moyston Cabernet Merlot 2004
Marius ‘Symposium’ Shiraz Mourvedre 2005

Number Two - Magnum Force
Meerea Park Hell Hole Shiraz 2003
A magnum signed by the winemaker. One of only 60 bottled and valued at over $130.

Number Three - Barossa beauties
Peter Lehmann ‘The Black Queen’ Sparkling Shiraz 1998
Saltram Mamre Brook Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Number Four - Three phase semillon (set to stun)
Tyrrell’s Reserve HVD Semillon 1999
Bimbadgen Estate Signature Semillon 2002
Meerea Park Hell Hole Semillon 2006

(more…)

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I could never wait to open up my presents as a little boy and I am no better now…Winorama is celebrating it’s first birthday. Woooohoooo. We turn the big one nothing on Saturday 21 October and what a year it has been. I kicked things off with a review of one of my all time favourite Hunter Shiraz - the Meerea Park Hell Hole Shiraz 2003 and would never have imagined that we would have some 1000+ reviews under our belt in less than a year. Of course I could never have done it without enlisting the help of the most charming, poetic and urbane Lincoln Scott. A man who I not only consider a great taster, but also a great friend. And then along came David bringing a wealth of wine making knowledge and experience to the site. One day I might actually get round to meeting him proper! (more…)

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A few people have commented that things move off the page quite quickly round here and as a result they often miss one of our renowned little tasting notes. So if you care to look up at the menu bar above you will see an option called ‘Digest’. It is a bit of a funny name I suppose but I am a funny guy. Pressing it will provide you with a list of the last 30 posts, 20 comments and the 20 most commented on topics. Things that you have looked at already will be presented in grey and those you have not in a our rather fetching Winorama shade of tan. You could use the link as a bookmark for the ‘at a glance’ summary rather than loading the homepage.

I have also included the price and points rating in the index listing of all tasting notes and refreshed the layout. Shortly I will include some sort options such as order by rating/price, producer, vintage etc. In the meantime I had better get cracking and do some tasting rather than programming. I know which is more fun.

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Well Winoramaistes, the competition is over and we have the winners. The answer was 551, so first prize goes to Mark G with an estimate of 549, and second prize goes to Craig Cullen with 555. Encouragement awards go to mekaal (546) and wizz (539) for answers that were close, but not close enough.

Thanks to all for participating!

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Just under a week in and around 40 entries so far with a couple of guesses that are very close. I had better think about second prize - I have a 95 E&E Black Pepper shiraz that I can offer which may appeal to many and terrify a few! Of course, for the terrified second place getter we can always find something more to their tastes and offer a small list for selection… A week to run yet though. The competition link can be found here as it will drop of the page shortly.

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Here’s a little competition for you. Guess the number of corks in the box and the Winorama management will send you 2 bottles of prostigious 2004 Marius Simpatico shiraz as a reward for your renowned estimation skills. Closest guess at 9pm on 19 June 2006 (that’s two weeks from now) wins first prize. A mystery bottle from the cellars of Winorama will be the second place prize. Post a response with your best guess but make it good as you only get one chance! Unfortunately, it should be noted that the wine can only be posted to an Australian address. Good luck Winoramistes!

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