Wine By DNA

Wine Drips

Wearable Device Gives BAC

Paso Robles Wine Travel Planner

A new web-based tool simplifies traveling through Paso Robles wine country.  The Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance has launched their new Trip Planner - on their website - which lets wine enthusiasts create customized itineraries.  The Trip Planner allows you to search over 160 Wine Alliance member wineries and map out a wine tasting experience based on amenities, varieties, and the region’s wineries.  The tool also incorporates the area’s hospitality assets - restaurants, accommodations, and tour companies.  

Jennifer Porter is the Executive Director of Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance.  She says, “There is no other wine region or entity that provides such a complete planning tool with the same customization and sharing capabilities that the Paso Robles Trip Planner offers.”

You can search for amenities such as certifiable sustainable, tours, pet friendliness or picnic areas, and cross reference capabilities allow you to refine your search according to the type of wine you like.  Adding locations to an itinerary can be done from any page on the website that lists wineries or hospitality businesses, with a single click of the mouse.  Once an itinerary is built, you can fine-tune by click-and-drag and add specific addresses for beginning and ending points.  Once the itinerary is complete, share it through social media, print it, email it or bookmark it.

To utilize the new Paso Robles Trip Planner, visit the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance website and click on the Plan Your Visit – My Itinerary button which sits to the right of the screen.  This will send you to a landing page which provides simple directions to begin creating an itinerary in three clicks.

I planned a trip for myself using the Trip Planner tool. Here's how it looks.

This Trip Planner was made possible through support from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.  The Alliance contracted with Clever Concepts, Kraftwerk Design, Mike Bobbitt and Associates, and Moosepoint Technologies to create the design and functionality of the Trip Planner.


Follow Randy Fuller on Twitter

A New Look For Now And Zin Wine

There's a bit of change underway on the Now And Zin Wine Blog.  If all my tech-savvy know-how falls into place without a hitch, you might not even notice it, except to remark that it may well be the first time all my tech-savvy know-how fell into place without a hitch.

For a number of reasons, I'm exiting the blog platform I have used for the past two years or so.  Website Tonight's Quick Blogcast service has looked good, but it has provided me with several technical issues I felt I needed to address.

I'm in the process of a "soft opening" of the new site, Now And Zin Wine, which should become official over the weekend.  It's actually a return to Google's Blogger platform, which I used in the initial months of this effort.  Google made a lot of upgrades since I had used it last, and it made sense for me to return to it.

If all goes well, it should be a seamless changeover.  If, however, you have saved links to articles on the Now And Zin Wine Blog for any reason, they will disappear at some point.  All the articles which have appeared in the past two years have been shifted over to the new site, so if you need to fix any links, they are available.

The Now And Zin Wine Report podcast also has a new location, and it is accessible through Now And Zin Wine.  You'll also find links for the Wine Country series, Blood Of The Vines, the Now And Zin Facebook page, California wine events and other items on the site.  The search box is easy to use, and the share and subscribe features should also be painless.

I'd love to hear feedback on the new site, if you feel inclined.  Contact information is available on the "About Randy Fuller" page at Now And Zin Wine.  Just click on my picture.

Thanks for all your support during an amazing growth period for Now And Zin.  I hope you find the changes make the site better.


Follow Randy Fuller on Twitter