Mobile Wine

With the proliferation of smart phones, iPads, and other devices that give us access to information on the go, the general public has had more information about wine at their fingertips than ever before.  People can look up a wine before they buy it at the grocery store.  You can find the perfect pairing for your dinner while walking down the aisle in the store.  You can even compare prices of wine, vintages, and producers, all at the touch of a button, and do it from anywhere.

I already touched on this a bit when writing about the future of wine marketing and social media, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.  People are much more connected now than ever before, and while that is a bad thing in some ways, it does give us access to more information, which in the case of wine, is usually a good thing.  Using information on the go and while looking at wines can help us sort out the producers, vintages, varietals, and regions that can confuse consumers when thinking about wine.  For example, “Wine Spectator” has a mobile vintage app for the iPhone that gives users their region by region vintage chart for the desired region, so you are sure to pick up the bottle of 2007 Napa Cabernet instead of the 2006.  This doesn’t guarantee that you will pick up a better wine, but picking a wine from a vintage that rated 97 will generally be better than one from a vintage rated 87.  I’m not a big user of this particular app, but it is fun to have on hand when I’m trying something new and just need a bit of information.  I like to go by producer more so than vintage, so I find other apps more helpful.

Wine Notes is a free app on the iPhone that allows you to enter tasting notes and store them on your phone so that you always have them on hand and are able to recall them at the touch of a button when needed.  This application is limited in its capabilities, but it can be a useful tool to log tasting notes on the go and to highlight wines that you want to try again, stay away from, or to just build a general database for yourself.  The only problem is that you have to get in the habit of using it.

My favorite app for wine is the Cellar app that costs just $3 for the iPhone, but it worth every cent.  This app allows you to thoroughly catalog your wine collection, keep notes on bottles that you’ve had, keep tabs on bottles to try, and ones to avoid.  The app has 4 basic areas- your cellar (wines you currently own), your wish list (self-explanatory), garage (wines you’ve had but want to try again), and garbage (wines to stay away from).  The beauty of this application is that when entering a bottle into one of the areas, you put in all the general information (vintage, producer, varietal, region, etc.), but you can also take a picture of the label to add to the wine so you can see and remember it in the future, you can add a price, rating, drink by, notes, and pairings.  Again, this is something that takes some getting used to using, but it can definitely help you out and allow you to keep track of what you’ve had, what you liked (or didn’t), and why. 

These 3 apps are just a few that I use regularly, and while I’m sure there are more out there that are completely worthwhile, with all the information we have available to us, it is important to not overwhelm yourself with too much information.  I’d always recommend trusting your gut when choosing a wine or a pairing, but I’d also recommend using something like one of these apps to assist you in building your palate and appreciation of wine by helping you remember characteristics of wine that you’ve had.  Let me know if there is any app out there that I should check out, I’m always eager to find something else that can help out my own appreciation of wine.