Take a look at the Vynecrest icons

My apology for slowing down on the postings. Directing an Urban Journalism Workshop for aspiring high school journalists at the Philly Daily News, so my available time has gone kaput for a couple of weeks. But left over from my recent conversation with John Landis of Vynecrest Vineyards & Winery was his answer to my observation about his Web site, which is characterized by icons identifying their wines as dry, semi-sweet and sweet.

“From waiting on our many customers in our tasting room, one of the things I observed is that most people, the first thing that distinguishes what they like and don’t like is the sweetness,” he said. “So we tried to give some guidelines to people who are trying to buy wines. We make 20 wines and we try and do it in such a way . . .we have complimentary tastings and we limit it to six . And so we try and focus on six that are within the range of what they like.”

Some know what they like, he said. But not everyone.

“The more sophisticated do, but most who come in don’t. So through the process of the tastings they learn what they like. That’s one of our jobs is to educate people in wines, particularly in Pennsylvania, where we have a state store system that fails on that part of the process very badly.”