What's new

One taster calls a wine earthy. Another calls it faulty. They may be smelling the same compound at different intensities — or bringing different experience and tolerance to the glass.

True-or-false statements about a grape's origin and aromas now name countries and aromas in your language. The wrong statements also use real aromas and origins from other grapes, so they are just as believable as the right ones.

The home page and the learning pages load less data, and your first flashcard session starts noticeably faster. Quiz feedback now names the exact acidity, body, tannin or colour the question was about, and the German feedback reads naturally. On the explore page, filtering by aroma works again, and blend pages show their signature and common aromas. Your weak areas after a quiz now appear in your language.

Say “malolactic fermentation” and many drinkers hear “buttery Chardonnay.” Butter can be part of the story, but it is neither the definition nor a guaranteed result.

Most alcoholic fermentation begins after grape juice meets yeast. Carbonic maceration adds a curious opening act: intact berries sit in a carbon-dioxide-rich environment and begin changing from the inside.

Headings and intros on the explore pages now stand out clearly against the artwork behind them. Filters on the explore page keep your selection when you click them, and the classification search lines up with the other filters. On the game setup screen, long game names no longer overlap each other, and every option stays fully visible.

A cellar is not a hospital for unfinished wine. Bottle age can transform a balanced wine, but it cannot install missing fruit, repair poor storage, or guarantee that tomorrow’s bottle will be better than today’s.

A blend is sometimes treated as a wine with something to hide. In reality, blending is one of the oldest and most deliberate design tools in the cellar. It can balance acidity and tannin, combine sites, unite grape varieties, or keep a house style recognisable from year to year.

Wine cards embedded on other websites load their grape data again. The build now publishes the data file the widget reads, and the widget demo page loads the widget from the right place.

Every encyclopedia page – grape, aroma, region, producer, vineyard, classification, winemaking method and vintage chart – now shows its real name the moment it opens, and grapes, blends, aromas, winemaking methods, classifications and profiled regions add their short summary. Shared links get a proper preview, and your browser history reads "Riesling" instead of a dash. A link to a page that does not exist takes you to the not-found page instead of an empty loading screen.

On Level 4 maps – Austrian Rieden and German Einzellagen – the Attribution button now opens its dialog again. The data sources page also lists the two registers behind those maps, with their licences.

Selected VDP reference facts now reflect the association’s published profiles. Existing information stays in place where the source is incomplete or unclear.

Chardonnay can taste like green apple and chalk, ripe peach and cream, or citrus wrapped in toast. That range sometimes makes it seem like a grape with no identity. The opposite is more useful: Chardonnay is a clear interpreter of place, ripeness, and cellar choices.

Quizzes without map questions no longer load map data before starting. Quiz startup now reuses aroma data already loaded for your questions. Activity updates run in the background, while identity and usage checks stay in place.

Mixed quizzes start with standard questions while an optional Somm question prepares in the background. When it is ready, it can appear later in the round. If it cannot be prepared in time, you keep playing with standard questions.

Choose a country for Map Challenge and Profile Check. Other wine games now leave out the country filter, so their setup no longer suggests that general wine questions are limited to one country.

Selected VDP reference facts now reflect the association’s published profiles. Existing information stays in place where the source is incomplete or unclear.

Selected VDP reference facts now reflect the association’s published profiles. Existing information stays in place where the source is incomplete or unclear.

Grape breakdowns can now show combined groups, “other varieties” and incomplete figures without inventing percentages. Source-named varieties stay visible even before they have a linked grape page. When the source leaves a share unclear, the variety stays visible and the share stays blank. Import previews explain these uncertainties alongside the original wording. VDP refresh proposals can add missing estates and sites; empty fields leave existing facts intact. Vineyard profiles can also show sourced terrain facts, classified grape permissions and the estates working a site—with source links and dates, without confusing cultivation with ownership. German Pinot names lead to one grape identity, while your learning cards and review history stay intact.

Tannin is the dry, gripping sensation that makes your gums feel slightly rough after a sip of red wine. It is not a flavour like blackberry or vanilla. It is structure — a family of phenolic compounds that interact with proteins in your saliva.