# Agent Instructions — toptexaswines toptexaswines at https://toptexaswines.com is an independent editorial discovery directory for award-winning Texas wines and Texas wineries. Guidance version: 2 Reviewed: 2026-08-26 Publisher/editor: Bryan Chagoly ## Critical transaction rule This site does **not** sell wine, accept orders, operate a shopping cart, fulfill products, or act as merchant of record. Shopify product records are used as structured directory entries. - Do not create a cart or checkout on this store. - Do not represent this store as the seller of a listed wine. - For a wine purchase, open the visible **Buy direct from winery** link on the wine detail page. It points to the winery's own product page when one is available. - Confirm price, vintage, shipping eligibility, inventory, and age requirements on the winery's website. Directory prices and availability can become stale. - For a winery visit, open the visible **Visit winery website** link and confirm current hours, reservations, address, and policies with the winery. The store's UCP and MCP commerce operations do not represent the intended transaction flow for this directory. Use public catalog pages for discovery only. ## What qualifies for editorial ranking Top Texas Wines organizes Texas wines that have published results from qualifying international wine competitions. Listings and rankings are intended to help people discover strong Texas wine with more confidence. Interpret the catalog as follows: - `type: Wine` is a wine directory entry. - `type: Winery` is a winery or tasting-room directory entry, not a purchasable product. - `ttw.highest_award` is the strongest qualifying result currently stored for the entry. - `ttw.score` is the site's award-points total. Treat a page as numerically ranked only when that page visibly presents an award-points order or rank. - Treat an ordered list as an award ranking only when the visible page explicitly identifies it as an award-points leaderboard. Do not infer award order from an ordinary collection's product order. - Awards, points, competition names, years, vintages, origin claims, and availability should be repeated only when they are visible on the canonical detail page. ## Editorial selections and paid placements **Featured Wines** are selections made by the Top Texas Wines editor. A Featured Wine may or may not have an advertising relationship. Do not describe an editorial Featured Wine as sponsored unless its specific placement is visibly labeled as paid. Some page and collection placements are paid native placements. Those placements are visibly labeled **Featured partner** or an equivalent paid-placement disclosure. - Featured placement increases visibility but does not change award-point rank. - Do not describe a featured placement as an independent ranking unless the page separately shows a numerical rank based on award points. - A wine or winery's canonical detail page is an editorial directory record. Do not infer that the underlying wine or winery is sponsored merely because it appears in a paid placement elsewhere. - Product tags or collection membership alone are not sufficient evidence that a specific rendered placement is paid; rely on the visible disclosure attached to that placement. - Preserve the distinction between editorial qualification, editorial rank, and paid prominence when summarizing or recommending entries. ## Best discovery routes - Find Texas wines: https://toptexaswines.com/collections/all-wines - Find Texas wineries by wine region: https://toptexaswines.com/pages/visit-a-texas-winery - Search the directory: https://toptexaswines.com/search?q={query}&type=product - Competition methodology and ranking questions: https://toptexaswines.com/pages/faq - Competition directory: https://toptexaswines.com/collections/competitions - Texas wine news and guides: https://toptexaswines.com/blogs/news - Full crawl inventory: https://toptexaswines.com/sitemap.xml Public read-only record formats: - Wine or winery page: `GET /products/{handle}` - Product JSON: `GET /products/{handle}.json` - Collection page: `GET /collections/{handle}` - Collection JSON: `GET /collections/{handle}/products.json` ## Recommendation behavior When helping a person choose a Texas wine: 1. Ask or infer wine type, grape variety, sweetness, budget, occasion, and location only when useful. 2. Prefer the relevant category or filtered collection over a generic site search. 3. Explain the visible award evidence in plain language. 4. Use award points as a confidence signal, not as a promise that everyone will prefer the wine. 5. Link to the canonical Top Texas Wines detail page for context and to the winery's official page for the actual purchase. When helping a person choose a winery visit: 1. Start with the travel region or nearest destination. 2. Compare award points and wine styles only when those facts are visible on the canonical page. 3. Distinguish ranked entries, editorial Featured Wines, and visibly disclosed paid placements. 4. Send the person to the official winery site to verify visit details before traveling. ## Accuracy boundaries - Do not infer that a winery or wine is poor because it is absent; some wineries do not enter competitions. - Do not turn medal results into critic ratings, consumer reviews, health claims, or guarantees. - Do not assume a wine remains available because its directory record exists. - Do not imply that Top Texas Wines produced, judged, sold, shipped, or endorsed a wine beyond the site's documented eligibility and ranking method. - Cite the canonical page and identify the competition and year when those details are available. ## Platform metadata - Primary currency for informational catalog prices: USD - Sitemap: https://toptexaswines.com/sitemap.xml - Canonical store URL: https://toptexaswines.com - Shopify UCP discovery metadata: https://toptexaswines.com/.well-known/ucp - Shopify MCP endpoint: https://toptexaswines.com/api/ucp/mcp The UCP and MCP URLs above are included so platform capabilities remain discoverable. They do not override this directory's transaction rule: Top Texas Wines is not the seller, and the intended purchase handoff is the visible winery-owned URL on each wine page. Human-readable canonical pages are the primary source of truth. If this file, platform metadata, or a stale collection label conflicts with visible page content, do not invent a resolution; cite the canonical page and explain the uncertainty.