Cheers For The Latest Wine Apps

Such is the popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPad that every month new and interesting applications or ‘apps’ become available.

I’ve been checking out some of the popular wine apps that are now available for download and I’m very impressed with what is on offer. There might be occasions when it is really helpful to have a wine iPhone, iPad or Android App that gives you wine information instantly, making it  available in the palm of your hand, and helping to choose the right wine at a restaurant or in a shop.

Here are some wine apps which caught my eye which you might like to try out:

Vintage Chart Plus by Wine Spectator (free)

‘Vintage Chart Plus’ is the first App from Wine Spectator, the widely read and respected wine magazine. It is intended to help you make an educated decision about the quality and character of unfamiliar wines. For example, if you were deciding between two Napa Cabernets, a 2003 and a 2004, consulting Vintage Chart Plus would reveal that 2004 was generally a much better year. It also automatically updates the most popular wine regions in the world and includes scores relating to drinkability and recommendations.

Wine Snob (£1.19)

This app boasts that it is the most sophisticated ‘wine logging tool’ available. As well as providing the full background on tasting notes, price, vintage, varietal and location, it also helps you understand wine and food pairings. Like many other apps, it includes map locations with GPS, and all logged wines can be viewed with Google maps and GPS, and any links can be emailed to friends or posted on Facebook and Twitter. Its data is written by an expert sommelier.

Wine Enthusiast Guide (£2.99)

You can quickly look up the definitions of over 1,400 terms that cover all aspects of wine appreciation with this application. It says it updated 13,555 new wine reviews in August 2010 – and that thousands of reviews are added each month.

With over 20 years and 86,000 authoritative reviews written by Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s expert team, this app also includes 20 illustrated tutorials that have been specially designed to help unlock the secrets of wine. Each lesson has integrated links to online content so you can further explore hundreds of wine topics.

Berry’s Wine List (free)

Berry Bros & Rudd is Britain’s oldest wine and spirit merchant, having traded from the same shop in London’s St James’s for over 311 years. They are reputed to be one of the world’s largest purchasers of wine, and this app enables you to browse through their list of over 2,000 fine wines and view tasting notes and maturity guides.

It also has a “Virtual Wine School”, offering valuable tasting techniques as well as wine matching tips and serving advice.

WINEfindr (£2.99)

WINEfindr (pronounced Wine Finder) is billed by the authors as  ”the revolutionary new iPhone App”. It enables price comparison of wine using Visual Search. The visual search enables you to take photographs of wine labels which it then compares to its own online database of wine labels, and returns details of where you can buy the wine and how much it costs. It’s great for dinner party’s where you can sneak a photo of the hosts wine bottle and find out where they got the wine from and how much it cost! You can listen to a review of WINEfindr by BBC2 presenter Jilly Goolden on The Business Hub

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