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Long Island Wine Council website gets a facelift

Wineries on the North Fork of Long Island
COURTESY PHOTO | A screenshot of the Long Island Wine Council's new website.

Have you noticed that the Long Island Wine Council’s website is looking a bit spiffier these days?

The wine council launched a new website Monday with larger images, more space for advertisements, and a link to download the wine council’s smartphone application.

Steve Bate, the council’s executive director, called the old website “an earlier generation site.”

“There were a lot of things that we weren’t doing because we didn’t have the technology in the old site,” he said.

Now, each time a new affiliate, like a restaurant or bed and breakfast, is added to the website, it will automatically be added to the Wine Council’s smart phone application. The website also has expanded social networking capabilities, which Mr. Bate said will likely increase traffic.

In addition to the new technology features, visitors to the site will also notice more color.

“We wanted to have something that was even more visual than the other site,” Mr. Bate said.

And visual it is.

Small pictures adorned the old website, but giant vineyard photographs, including one with an aerial view, now stretch across a large portion of the new site’s homepage.

And advertisers will find some changes, too. Those who wish to take out web advertisements can now opt for long, horizontal banners, while they could previously only be named in a listing.

The goal of both websites is the same: to inform visitors to North Fork wineries about where to wine, where to dine, where to stay and what to do.

The design and development, carried out by Michael Croteau of Croteaux Vineyards in Southold, began this past spring — and isn’t complete yet.

A section will soon be added on wine styles: dry; sweet or sparkling; something Mr. Bate said winery visitors often ask him about.

Another section on the technical aspects of vineyards, like horticulture and winemaking, is coming soon.

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