The San Francisco Chronicle launched a new interactive wine website called The Press that will provide an easy, user-friendly way for wine lovers to discover the best wineries and tasting rooms in California. It will also include information, details, and insights on how to plan a trip to California Wine Country, as well as plenty of in-depth features on notable wineries.

The website taps into the deep expertise that the San Francisco Chronicle has in covering the state’s food and wine industry. Writers for the website, for example, will include Wine Critic Esther Mobley, Food Editor Paolo Lucchesi, and Restaurant Critic Michael Bauer. “With The Press, wine lovers get recommendations and insight from Esther Mobley, one of the top wine journalists in the country, along with her crew of writers,” according to Kitty Morgan, Assistant Managing Editor for the Lifestyle section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

At launch, The Press includes an interactive map of California Wine Country, a list of suggested itineraries and trips, and original content covering both Napa Valley (“The Climb for Cabernet”) and Sonoma Valley (“Sonoma: Tour the Valley of the Moon”), two of the most famous wine regions in the state. There are also winery reviews and a complete directory of wineries in the state.

Moreover, for wineries looking to attract new tourists and wine drinkers, The Press will also contain “sponsored content” from partners. At launch, The Press featured an article on Schug Carneros Estate Winery and La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard.

It’s easy to see how the guide can be used by both amateurs and connoisseurs to discover California’s best wineries. The key to the success of The Press will be the deep wine journalism expertise of the paper’s staff writers and reviewers. 

“They’ve visited hundreds of the region’s wineries, checked out the tasting rooms and sampled the wines,” says Morgan. “With this information, those wine lovers can then plan a trip that meets their budgets, time frame and interests. The Press is wine journalism made totally user-friendly.”

The Press has also been optimized for mobile, meaning that wine tourists can plan a trip while on the go. For example, the interactive mapping features can be used to zero in on a specific wine growing region, while the wealth of other directory features available on the website can be used to find an opening and closing hours, approximate costs for wine tastings, and brief details about the best wines to try.

The San Francisco Chronicle has been covering the wine industry for decades, so it makes sense to update its wine journalism for tech-savvy oenophiles. It’s easy to see how similar types of content sites could be set up for other wine regions around the country.

At one time, information about wineries and the wines they produced might have seemed inaccessible to the average person looking for a new wine to drink. But new online initiatives such as The Press are making this information widely available to everyone, on every digital device. For young Millennials who might not read print newspapers but still enjoy experiencing new wines, this is a great way to learn more about California Wine Country.