I’ve been looking for an app that allows me to capture the essence of wines that I’ve tasted, display the results of others for wines I haven’t tasted, view the label, the price and the wine maker’s description in a clean interface. Data input must be easy and, because of the nature of wine, must have access to an extensive database. I would also insist on the ability to back up the data.
In the journey to find such an application, I’ve come across a good number of wine apps. Indeed, there are over 100 free wine apps in the app store, though I haven’t tested nearly half of them. I thought it might be of interest to others, as well as a brief documentation for myself, to post the brief findings of wine apps that I’ve toyed with. This post is a work in progress and has incomplete data. It will be updated as time allows. One of the most disturbing lack of features is the ability to back up your database. Without that ability it’s impossible to reach a 5 star rating. Nobody wants to spend hours scanning labels, entering their taste experiences and typing in their inventory to get it erased.
| App | Properties | Notes | My Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wine Events by Local Wine Events.com |
Wine Tasting Events Calendar | Shows wine and beer tasting events in cities around your area. |
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| NY Wine & Food Pairings by New York Wine and Grape Foundation |
General Wine Reference Guide
Food and Wine Pairings Guide |
Shows grapes, wine flavors and food pairings. General wine information. |
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| Wine Ph.D. | General Wine Reference Guide
Wine Restaurant/Winery Search Food and Wine Pairings Guide Wine News Search and Browse by Winery, Varietal, Region and Pairing Wine Ph.D. Ratings Lists Average Cost of Wine Displays Wine Label Images Displays Winemaker Notes Allows Personal Wine Inventory Database Stores Personal Wine Tastings |
Interface is attractive, but a bit touchy. Feels like it tries to be too much, which can complicate the flow, but handles the various jobs well. |
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| Hello Vino | Food and Wine Pairings Guide
Occasion and Wine Pairings Guide Wine Reviews Search by Varietal, Price, Vintage, Region, Rating, State and Stock (based on wine.com) Wine Ratings Wine Prices Shopping (wine.com) Displays Wine Label Images Displays Winemaker Notes Twitter and Facebook integration |
Appears to be based off of the wine.com database. Browsing is very limited. Intended to help you find a wine by pairing or find a pairing by wine. |
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| Noble Wine | General Wine Reference Guide | Strictly a reference or learning app that teaches the basics of wine and its styles, types, making, laws and composition. No images. |
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| Tesco Wine Finder
by Tesco.com |
Wine search By Scanning Label (but very limited in its findings)
Shake for Random Wine Provides Wine Prices and shopping (tesco.com) Displays Wine Labels Displays Winemaker Notes |
Although you can search by scanning the label, it’s very limited in its findings. There’s a selector that allows you to pick characteristics of wine, then it searches for a random wine in its database that matches that criteria. It’s an interesting idea, but without a huge google-esque database of wine labels and without a faster image recognition algorithm, it’s pretty destined to fail. I.E. it’s a novelty app, but not very useful. |
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| Corkbin
by Inmite |
Requires an account
Food and Wine Pairings Guide Wine Reviews and Ratings by other Corkbin Users Browse Wine by Friend or Vicinity Displays Wine Labels Stores Personal Wine Tastings Integrates with Twitter, Facebook and Blogs |
This app is intended to make wine tasting into a social network product of its own. You taste wine, take a picture of the label and share your experience in a short sentence. People follow each other like twitter. |
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| iWine Journal | Personal Wine Inventory DB
Stores Personal Wine Tastings |
Very basic app that stores your typed in values for wines you have tasted. |
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| Grape-It | Personal Wine Inventory DB
Stores Personal Wine Tastings |
Like iWine Journal, this is a very basic app that stores your typed in values for wines you have tasted. |
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| Wine Notes
by William Lindmeier |
Searches and Browses wines you’ve entered
Personal Wine Inventory DB Stores Personal Wine Tastings |
Comprehensive Wine Inventory app. You can’t search the internet for a wine and copy it into your inventory, but it has some fantastic properties. For example, you can move sliders until the color on the screen mimics that of your wine. You also have some keen sliders in the profie. You also have nearly 60 flavors to build a combination from. I would almost call this one of the best wine inventory apps out there, but I have yet to try some of the competition. |
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