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2013-08-10

iPhone Apps For Wine

It has been said that we are all products of our environment, maybe that’s why it seems like half the people I know are trying to develop an Iphone App for wine.  Having a wine business based just outside of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area gives me access to new and exciting wine applications for the Iphone.






Snooth Wine Pro


If I could have only one wine app on my Iphone, this would easily be the one.  To start, the search function for any given wine actually works.  That’s a bigger thing than most people realize since there isn’t  a standard way to list vineyard location, wine name, varietal and the other information that you’d need to find a bottle of wine in their system.  Secondly, Snooth brings together an interesting combination of user reviews of wine, professional review information and stores.  Stores are able to upload their inventory onto Snooth for a small monthly fee, therefore when you’re looking at a discount at the grocery store, it should be pretty easy to check and see if that’s actually a good deal or not!




Pair It


Let’s face it, wine is best consumed with food.  Most people also buy wine on the day they’re planning to open it, so it behooves you to be able to pair your wine with the food you’re planning to make for dinner.  As an example, if you’re having shrimp most people are going to purchase a Chardonnay.  Did you know that Grenache Blanc is probably a better pairing though? Pair It allows you to either upload your own recipes and gain pairings that way, or to use their set lists of food choices.  Most people that I know, love the Vegas slot machine style of matching.  It allows the system to select a good pairing seemingly at random, so you don’t end up drinking the exact same types of wine every week with your favorite meals.




Wine Events


Local Wine Events is by far the best resource for finding local tasting events, so it makes sense that their Iphone App leads the category in social sharing and allowing you to find other wine drinkers and wine events. I like that it uses your current GPS location which allows you to see if any local wine bars or wine stores have current tasting events on the schedule.  My wife and I use this extensively when we’re actually in San Francisco or Napa Valley since there are so many listings in those two places.




Wine Enthusiast Guide


Wine Enthusiast is seemingly gaining market share among the major wine reviewers as time goes by.  Part of that gain is coming because they make their information more accessible than does Robert Parker, or Wine Spectator.  This app is a simple way to see their tasting guides and information about the wines that they have reviewed in their past few episodes.
Wine lover’s are really lucky that it seems like wine and technology are increasingly going together.  Never before has more information been more freely available than it is today, make use of it!



Author Bio:

Mark Aselstine is the owner of Uncorked Ventures, an online wine club based just outside of the city of San Francisco.  As a millenial himself, he understands the need to combine wine and technology together.