I spotted a resurrected thread in which a recipe for grapefruit wine was requested. This made me think of the recipe archive published by Don Buchan, former keeper of the FAQ for rec.crafts.winemaking.
In pre-historic times (the 1990's) Usenet AKA New Groups was the most common form of world-wide mass communication. Most ISP's had a UseNet server their subscribers could access -- I recall my ISP hosted 22,000+ news groups on every topic imaginable (and some I'd rather not imagine). Using a 9,600 baud modem it took a while to simply download the list of groups. I'd kick it off before bedtime and hope it finished by morning and that I'd not lose the connection overnight.
Usenet servers talked to other Usenet servers to distribute posts. My post would be sent to nearby Usenet servers which would continue to send, until posts made it around the world. This could take hours or even days (remember, we are discussing pre-historic times!). Due to limited server space, after a time posts would cycle off and be gone, lost forever. Groups that allowed binary files (music & video) cycled even faster. /end of history lesson
Don still publishes the FAQ, last updated in March 1999. While the links all appear as dead as Usenet, it's a snapshot in time. He amassed a lot of good information that is relevant today, as the basics of wine making don't change much.
In addition, Don collected recipes to preserve them before they cycled off Usenet. He collated by subject matter, zipped each text file, and published on his web site. This collection is a crapshoot -- his goal was preservation so 99% of the recipes are untested, and in some cases he accumulated numerous recipes for a given fruit type, and some conflict with each other. Regardless, it's a potentially useful resource.
In pre-historic times (the 1990's) Usenet AKA New Groups was the most common form of world-wide mass communication. Most ISP's had a UseNet server their subscribers could access -- I recall my ISP hosted 22,000+ news groups on every topic imaginable (and some I'd rather not imagine). Using a 9,600 baud modem it took a while to simply download the list of groups. I'd kick it off before bedtime and hope it finished by morning and that I'd not lose the connection overnight.
Usenet servers talked to other Usenet servers to distribute posts. My post would be sent to nearby Usenet servers which would continue to send, until posts made it around the world. This could take hours or even days (remember, we are discussing pre-historic times!). Due to limited server space, after a time posts would cycle off and be gone, lost forever. Groups that allowed binary files (music & video) cycled even faster. /end of history lesson
Don still publishes the FAQ, last updated in March 1999. While the links all appear as dead as Usenet, it's a snapshot in time. He amassed a lot of good information that is relevant today, as the basics of wine making don't change much.
In addition, Don collected recipes to preserve them before they cycled off Usenet. He collated by subject matter, zipped each text file, and published on his web site. This collection is a crapshoot -- his goal was preservation so 99% of the recipes are untested, and in some cases he accumulated numerous recipes for a given fruit type, and some conflict with each other. Regardless, it's a potentially useful resource.