I take my hat off to Hugh. This is one wine reference book that I have nothing to do with, and it is absolutely brilliant. It's very small—although, of course, it's been getting bigger and bigger as the wine world has expanded—and it does pack a heck of a lot of information.
It says how long ago something was said, so you can tell last month
from 2014 without doing the arithmetic. Full and green is recent; it
drains and cools as the date gets older, and empties completely at about
6 years.
5d5 days ago
8mo8 months ago
2yr2 years ago
4yr4 years ago
9yr9 years ago
A striped bar means the date itself is an estimate — the source did
not carry an exact one. An entry with no date at all gets no bar.