Talk-A-Vino

And the subject of today’s post is … Apps. No, I’m not referring to the appetizers here – lets talk about the wine phone apps.

Smartphones became extremely popular and widespread nowadays, same as wine (hmmm, is there a connection here?). Smartphones deliver incredible convenience and power of information, available at any instance, day or night, as soon as as one desires to obtain that information. For the most of the time, the information is obtained with the help of so called “Apps”, which is a short for Applications, known in the old days simply as “Programs” or “Software”. But let me not get away here on a tangent, as the plan is to talk about wine. The Wine Apps, to be more precise.

Wine lovers generally want to have some ways to keep track of what they drink, what they like, what the others think of that wine, which wineries they can visit when they travel, what is in their cellars or where to find that particular wine they just had yesterday. And as you would expect, there are apps for all of these tasks.

Quick disclaimer: I’m an iPhone user, so everything I will say here will be pertinent first of all to the iPhone apps – however, I expect that most of the same apps should be available on Android phones. And another quick disclaimer – all the numbers and all the apps I mention here are current as of the date of this post (take a look on the top of the page for that).

Wine is popular today, and it shows in the number of apps available in the App Store. Over the few days as I started working on this post, the number of available apps was steadily increasing, adding new hits daily. The number of apps found searching for the keyword “wine” went from 2,993 two days ago to the 2,998. Of course this is a far cry from 38,877 results in the “travel” category, but still a lot more than many others, for instance, “gardening” at 542.

These wine apps can be split into many different categories. From my experience, trying to categorize objects is usually hard and ungrateful – many apps have a variety of features which make them suitable for the different categories. Nevertheless, let me try to suggest a few different buckets for the wine apps:

1. “Wine journal” type – these apps let you keep the records of what you drink, what you liked and so on. These apps might also help you look for the wines you liked. Examples would include Delectable, Drync, Vivino and others.
2. Cellar/collection management apps – CellarTracker would be definitely the top example.
3. Wine information and research – Wine-Searcher and Wine Spectator WineRatings+ would be the top two dedicated examples, but many apps would allow you to research the wines.
4. Wine buying apps – WTSO is a primary example, of course there are more.
5. Wine travel and events planning apps – Wine Events, Winery Passport and Cork Sharing would be some I’m aware of – I’m sure there are plenty more, including some from the individual wineries.
6. “Just for fun” apps – wine quizzes, puzzles and more – Wine Trivia Quiz would be one of the examples, there should be more.

Note that I’m not trying to differentiate here between free, semi-free (in-app purchases) and paid-for applications. With some apps costing only $0.99, I don’t think it makes a huge difference. In any case, practically all of the most popular apps are free.

Okay, so where am I going with all this? Let me gladly explain. Reason #1 for this post is simply a curiosity. I use very little of the wine apps – Wine-Searcher is very handy, and WTSO is useful. I played some wine quizzes – but was not enchanted with the content (no comparison with Bejeweled Blitz if you want to know my vice). So while I’m not actively using the wine apps, I’m sure that many of you are – and this is what I would like to find out. Leave a comment about your favorite wine apps (if you care, add a few words as to why you like it) – or take an easier route and check your favorite apps in the poll below. You will be able to select up to 5 favorites, or write-in.

Reason #2 – with such a variety of the wine apps in existence, I would like to offer a “platform” for the any wine app maker to explain their application better. If you have or working on the wine app, and would like to present it to the readers of this blog, please send me (contact info in the About section) a short write up  – 2-3 paragraphs, about 350 words, 1 – 2 pictures. Your writing can’t be an advertizement, advertorial or a press release – it should be a genuine explanation of what your app is for and what are your differentiators. If your post will fit the criteria outlined here, I will be glad to publish it as a separate post.

So, what do you think of the wine apps? What are you using, or planning to use? Chime in, don’t be shy! Cheers!