The same wine expertise, in print and online
A printed wine guide rewards browsing. You can explore a region, read about a winery and compare tasting notes as you turn the pages. Online, you might arrive with a particular wine in mind and want to narrow down the options. Our work for Vinaria connects these two ways of using its editorial content.
LWmedia works across publishing and events, including Vinaria and a range of wine, food and cultural events. We have worked with the company since 2014. The wine guide is a particularly close connection between our development work and the expertise at the heart of the client’s business.
The 2026/27 edition covers around 350 wineries and more than 3,500 wines. Vinaria’s editorial team supplies the selection, descriptions and assessments. Our contribution is the route from the book’s production files to a working online catalogue.
It starts in the book’s InDesign file
The source is Adobe InDesign, where the printed guide takes shape. Content intended for export is marked with XML tags. These identify structure within the document and are preserved when the content is exported as XML.
The XML tags organise winery details, descriptions and the accompanying wines. Within each wine entry, more information is packed into the guide’s shorthand: grape codes, rating symbols, price categories and vintages. Search needs those details as individual values, not just as part of a passage of text.
Our import takes this XML file and builds the catalogue in TYPO3. Readers are not looking at a PDF of the book. They use an application with its own presentation and search, while the printed guide retains its page design.
Turning the guide’s shorthand into searchable wine data
We developed a custom TYPO3 extension for this. Its parser reads the exported wine entries using the guide’s conventions, extracting grape variety, vintage, rating, bottle closure and price category. Each wine also receives its name and tasting note.
Labels such as TOP, TIPP, FUN and PLV become separate attributes. The book’s shorthand is no longer just text on a page: the application can work with each detail individually. Those values give readers a way to narrow down wines by their characteristics.
The extension links each wine to its winery and assigns the wineries to the region selected for the import. A wine entry can lead readers to the producer behind it. The way the guide organises its subject matter carries through into the catalogue’s navigation and search.
-
InDesign
Content in the book’s production file is marked with XML tags.
-
XML export
The exported file carries both the content and its structure.
-
TYPO3 import
The extension extracts wine attributes and links wines, wineries and the selected region.
-
Online guide
Readers search and filter the catalogue in their browser.
A dedicated import module in TYPO3
The backend module accepts an XML file and an image archive, together with a selected wine region. The extension then processes the files and creates the wineries and their wines. Winery records also include contact details, descriptions and author references.
An import summary lists the wineries created and the number of wines associated with each one. It also flags missing author or image assignments, making the result easier to review within the CMS.
Search by grape variety, vintage and rating
Readers can narrow wines down by grape variety, vintage and price category, or look for wineries within a region. The rating systems remain distinct: crowns assess wineries, while stars rate individual wines.
Descriptions and tasting notes give context to the results, keeping Vinaria’s editorial assessment part of the experience. The online guide is free to use and complements the printed book.
A shared TYPO3 framework for publishing and events
The wine guide sits within a wider family of projects. Vinaria, its event pages, the Wachauer Volksfest website and LWmedia’s corporate site now share a TYPO3 framework.
Each serves a different purpose. The magazine publishes articles; the wine guide lets readers search a catalogue. A wine fair needs information for visitors and exhibitors, while a festival presents its programme and hosts. The shared technical foundation supports all of these:
- Vinaria (German)
- The wine magazine and searchable wine guide at vinaria.at.
- WEIN & GENUSS Linz (German)
- The wine fair’s website, with information for visitors and exhibitors.
- WEIN & GENUSS Innsbruck (German)
- A dedicated event presence within vinaria.at.
- wachau GOURMETfestival
- The programme, hosts and visitor information, available in German and English.
- Wachauer Volksfest (German)
- The festival website, with its programme and information for visitors.
- LWmedia (German)
- The corporate website, introducing the company’s publications and events.
Working with LWmedia since 2014
The vinaria.at relaunch project began in 2019, and the new website launched in 2020. Today, the wine guide and shared TYPO3 framework are part of a client relationship that extends well beyond that launch.
What makes this work particularly interesting is its connection to publishing. The InDesign file is not simply the last stop before a book goes to print. Its structured content also supplies another application, bringing Vinaria’s wine expertise to readers who want to search as well as browse.
The editorial work behind Vinaria’s printed wine guide also powers its online catalogue. Our InDesign-to-TYPO3 import gives readers another way to explore that knowledge: through searches for regions, wineries and individual wines.