Tyson Stelzer is on the Hunt
Widely known for his support of screw caps as a viable replacement for cork, Tyson Stelzer has just opened a new web site where he offers you the rewards of his hunt for the best wines in Australia and New Zealand.

At present the site lists over 1600 wines in a free, searchable format. A feature that will be added soon is the ability to download to your mobile phone - Never again be stuck for options in a bottle shop or restaurant! Whether that will be available here in the USA is not clear, but I like it when a site tries to use current technology to make life a little easier. You can also sign up to receive updates on new content.

Naturally its not a perfect site, but then what is! The search format, according to Tyson "only functions according to the words in each of the fields in each review". So its difficult to find all Barossa Shiraz for example. But you can download lists of wines from 2003 and 2004 grouped by score, or varietal, or winery. You can then go back and search the site for Tyson’s tasting note on that particular wine. You can also search by price, but only in Australian dollars. Another feature is the ability to search for wines that Tyson loves or likes at least in 2005. Its not obvious what defines like or love as the scores do overlap. Also the listing of wines by year is for the year they were tasted in, and not the vintage of the wines.

But these are little problems that I’m sure will be solved or explained as the site matures. Get on over there and find a few wines.