Two Hundred Times DiWineTaste!

 Two hundred. The DiWineTaste issue you are reading marks an important and significant moment for our publication as it is the 200^th issue. Two hundred issues. A milestone that we reach in the nineteenth year of our publishing activity, a long journey began in September 2002. In the past, in the pages of our publication, it has already happened that I told the birth of DiWineTaste and some of the most significant moments of our activity. DiWineTaste showed up to the wine lovers of the WEB exactly on 9 September 2002 at 10:10 PM. At that time, the offer of wine review and information on the Internet was very small and DiWineTaste has certainly been one of the first periodicals of the WEB to report the world of wine and to publish wine reviews on a monthly basis. In short, not a simple website, indeed a digital and periodic publication completely dedicated to wine. To further underline the nature of digital publication, therefore to be read and printed, DiWineTaste, at the beginning of its life, was only available in Adobe Portable Document Format, that is, PDF.

 The event of the publication of the website and the first issue of DiWineTaste was greeted with a glass of Marsala Vergine vintage 1987, a wine that has always been one of my favorite ones and therefore absolutely perfect for such a significant and important event. Those who know me also know Marsala Vergine is one of my favorite wines, a wine I have always treasured in my heart and that, when it is worthy of its name, is capable of endless emotions. The beginning of DiWineTaste was decidedly encouraging: the first issue was downloaded by over six thousand readers and it even caught the interest of the press with the publication of reports that were expressly talking about us and our editorial project. Those who read that first issue also expressed their appreciation for our job: our mailbox was literally flooded with messages. We answered to each one of them, with time and patience, despite the fact emails were delivered every day to our box.

 Many of them had ideas that we kept and set aside for “future developments”. With time, many of our readers' ideas and suggestions have been implemented and this is something we have never stopped doing. Just as our readers have never stopped sending us their emails with ideas and suggestions. The first version of DiWineTaste website was definitely far from what it has become over time: looking at it today is like watching a kid in its childhood, evoking emotions and memories that even today is capable to bring back to life, vivid and unchanged in my mind. It must be said, in fact, all the versions of the websites and of the layout styles are stored internally in our systems and kept as historical records of what has been done and how we were. If it is true the website has changed over time, offering new services and features, one thing has never changed since the beginning: the use of L^AT_EX2_ε for the composition of the magazine, both in PDF format and on the website. This name will probably say very little to many, or maybe nothing, however it is the central tool of the composition of each issue and is a milestone and powerful giant of digital publishing, with almost endless versatility and functionality.

 Over the course of our two hundred issues – almost twenty years – many things have been accomplished and much has changed in our editorial activity and in the services offered to our readers. One of the activities that I wanted to start since the very beginning, with the foundation of DiWineTaste, have been the events, chances for our readers to meet and get to know the producers and wines that we were publishing in the pages of our magazine and Guide. In fact, I have always been convinced that, to truly understand a wine and the emotions it can arouse and communicate in each of us, reading and words are not enough. They certainly help to get an idea and to get to know a wine and who make it in a preliminary way, however they are always far from what the glass directly tells to each one of us. At this moment, unfortunately, due to the epidemiological emergency from Covid-19, our events are suspended, however – and I say this with pride and satisfaction – in these twenty years we have given our readers the chance to taste over 1000 wines from about 200 wineries, of course, all of them reviewed in DiWineTaste.

 There have been, of course, other significant moments that marked our editorial activity, all with the aim of offering our readers new possibilities of interaction and usability of the services. Including the development and release of the apps for Android and iOS mobile devices, followed shortly after by the publication of our podcast. This channel, in fact, has been specifically thought for the use with the app, therefore giving our readers the chance to listen to each episode straight from their mobile devices. The statistics of daily use of our apps confirm it has been the right choice and, above all, appreciated by our readers. The use of DiWineTaste services is in fact today divided almost equally between the website and the apps, in particular, the apps of mobile devices records a more intense use in the evening hours. The browsing of our Guides, in fact, and in particular, the food and wine pairing tool of the Wine Guide – available on our site since 2002 – records the greatest frequency of use right in the evening hours.

 What about our EnoGames? It is, without a doubt, one of the most appreciated services of DiWineTaste along with Wine and Spirit Guides. It seems our readers really like to test their knowledge about wine – both on the site and in the app – with the countless quizzes of our EnoGames, in particular, EnoQuiz. With its 1200 questions, EnoQuiz catches the interest of our readers and, they tell us, they are even used for “competitions” with friends and to prepare to pass examinations about professions related to wine. Last but not least, and certainly very important, as it is the fundamental and central element of DiWineTaste, the monthly publication which, as of today, has an average of 155,000 total monthly readers for the Italian and English editions. When I founded DiWineTaste in 2002, I certainly had a very different project in mind and of what it is today. Time and, above all, the ideas and feedback from our readers, have shown us the right way to go. One thing, however, in all this time, has never changed: our vision of the critical evaluation of wine and how we organize tasting sessions.

 I in fact strongly believe the most reliable and honest method is using the so called blind tasting method, a fundamental requirement for us and to which we have never made exceptions. All the wines and spirits published in the course of these 200 issues in our Guides are the result of this method. Applied to all wines and producers, it remains the indispensable foundation for our way of making information and review wines. Without exception, although it has happened – to tell the truth, more and more frequently in the last years – that producers request the tasting of their wines in their wineries as they do not want to ship the wines to our office, therefore to submit them to the consequent and strict evaluation of “blind tasting”. These are choices we of course respect, but we do not consider fair or honest to grant or make exceptions in this sense, both towards our readers and the producers present in our Guides. We follow our path, without claiming it can be shared by everyone or considered the right one, we are however aware every wine and producer must be considered and treated in the same way. Right or wrong, it has taken us this far and will certainly continue to accompany us in our future journey. A future that also starts from this issue number 200 and that we want to celebrate with all our readers and all the producers who have trusted us and the way we do our job. A toast, therefore, to all of you and also to us for this two hundredth time of DiWineTaste!