Feeling nostalgic as you get ready to toast the new year?
Recommendations for 鈥渂est buys鈥 in Champagnes and party menus from some 50 years ago are among the treats in a new crowdsourcing database of historic wine prices from the University of California, Davis.
, with more than 200 digitized catalogs of famed New York-based distributor , is the most comprehensive online database of its kind. People from around the world can enjoy browsing the catalogs, enter pricing information and help chart America鈥檚 appreciation for wine.
The created the project from its collection of Sherry-Lehmann catalogs, part of an in-kind donation from the estate of . Published to promote business and educate the wine-buying public, the catalogs are filled with recipes, pithy advertisements and eye-catching graphics.
For wine enthusiasts to academics
With about 3,700 pages of wine pricing data, Price the Vintage has already captured the attention of wine enthusiasts, economists and academics.
Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, will use Price the Vintage in her history of modern wine course in February 2018. And Paul J. Merton, independent researcher and president of Ethos Wines Group, said it made possible a research project on the relative pricing of Champagne.
Julian M. Alston, director of the at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis鈥 , said no other resource provides the database鈥檚 comparable detail. 鈥淭his compilation promises to be an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in understanding the evolution of California wine and much more,鈥 said the distinguished professor in the university鈥檚 Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Earlier this month the library received a $50,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop machine-added methodologies to build out the database of prices more quickly.
鈥淥ur hope is that scholars from around the world will use the data we extract from these historical materials to do new research, draw new inferences, and make new discoveries across a variety of disciplines鈥 said University Librarian MacKenzie Smith.
鈥楪reatest wine library in the world鈥
Price the Vintage is the second phase of another wine-related, digital crowdsourcing project led by the library. catalogued thousands of wine labels from the collection of the late Maynard Amerine, a world-renowned viticulture and enology professor at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis.
Called 鈥渢he greatest wine library in the world鈥 by British author Hugh Johnson 鈥 the library holds over 30,000 wine books and of rare manuscripts, maps and imprints on wine dating back as far as 1450.
Media Resources
MacKenzie Smith, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Library, 530-752-2110, macsmith@ucdavis.edu
Julia Ann Easley, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis News and Media Relations, 530-752-8248, jaeasley@ucdavis.edu