Top 10 apps for wine lovers

With the world of wine in constant flux there are always new ways of consuming knowledge, tracking experiences and purchasing wine, tasks made infinitely easier by technology.

Apps have become a staple tool in modern life, helping to manage every aspect of one’s personal and professional life.

Wine, for many, is no exception, with an increasing number of apps offering a method of indulging an interest in wine with ease.

Services can range from helping to record your tasting notes and sourcing bottles for purchase to checking the price of a bottle of wine and booking on to local wine events and masterclasses.

New apps are constantly popping up on the market, but here are just ten that have caught our eye.

All can be downloaded for free, with some incurring in-app costs, through iTunes or Android.

Scroll through to see our pick of some of our favourite wine apps…

Vivino

Vivino is a wine app that scans wine labels and provides details about that wine such as user and expert ratings, price, features, and the nearest store where you can buy it or purchase and order directly on your phone.

Take a picture of any wine and the Vivino Wine Scanner promises to identify it from its database of more than 2 million wines giving you information on its average price, tasting notes, winery, rank, food pairing and grape variety.

It also allows you to purchase wine “based on your taste, like-minded users and the magic of deep Vivino knowledge”.

The service claims to have over 34 million users to date and to be ‘the largest wine library in the world‘.

However is the app can’t immediately find a match for your label, the team behind the scenes will manually identify it, usually within minutes if not hours.

Vivino was founded in 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and now has offices in San Francisco, Ukraine and India.

Available for Download on iPhone and Android.

Plonk

Devised by Bibendum, Plonk is a brilliantly simple app for helping the novice wine lover decipher their favourite wine styles and grapes.

It features an interactive guide to every major grape variety in the world alongside a brief explanation of its origins, tasting notes, as well as helpful pronunciation audio bites.

Users can mark each wine variety with a rating in a ‘tried and tasted’ section, and search for wines by their country, style or recommended food pairing.

Users are also encouraged to take pictures of their wine occasions, recording information on their favourite wines in order to build a gallery of wine moments and then look back – a pictorial reminder of your best bottles.

Available for download on iPhone and Android.

The Drinks Business 

The drinks business is not only an international trade magazine and website offering a wealth of news and analysis on the wine and spirits industry, but also an app, offering its content to users on the go.

Available to download for free, the app offers an easily digestible news service produced by our team of in-house journalists daily, keeping you at the forefront of what is happening in the drinks industry, focusing on wine, spirits and beer.

The app’s news service is free, but also allows subscribers to read digital copies of our monthly magazine on an iOS tablet or phone in high resolution while on the go.

Once an issue is downloaded to a device, the user doesn’t need to have an internet connection to read it whenever and wherever they like. Back issues of the drinks business are available to download as well as the most recent publications.

Users will need a digital username and password to login to the app. If you’re a print subscriber and unsure of your digital login details please drop us an email at subs@thedrinksbusiness.com and we’ll get you registered straight away.

You can download it for free from the Apple App Store, or for more info click here.

Local Wine Events

This global app aims to bring the world of wine to your doorstep, connecting you with local wine events happening in your area, whether its in the US, UK, or elsewhere. Its service currently extends to hundreds of destinations, from Malta and Moldova to the Caribbean and Russia.

Whenever there is a wine event happening near you, the app will inform you and offer information on attending and tickets.

It also periodically offers exclusive ticket access and offers, and also allows you to share event information easily with friends via social media.

Available on the App Store and Google Play.

Wine-Searcher

The Wine-Searcher app allows users to find and compare prices for specific wines, connecting you to a database of more than 5.5 million wine prices and offers from 40,000 retailers worldwide.

Search for any wine and the app will tell you where it is available, what different stores are charging and those nearest to you.

It will even give you details on the wine’s origin, grape variety and price history as well as informing you which other vintages of the wine are available, alongside the tasting notes of wine critics.

Available on the App Store and Google Play.

Living Wine Labels

The Living Wine Labels app gives wine labels the ability to ‘come to life’.

It’s a burgeoning tool in the wine marketer’s arsenal, which Treasury Wine Estates, among others, has taken up with enthusiasm to promote its 19 Crimes wine range.

Upon moving your phone over a compatible AR-enabled wine label, the label is transformed into a moving image, telling the story of the label and bringing its backstory to life.

Treasury’s 19 Crimes range, for example, depicts the image of infamous convicts, with the moving image telling each of their story.

The technology has also been applied to a range of The Walking Dead Wines (exclusive to US and Canada), unlocking interactive games to play within the TV show’s zombie-verse.

Find out more on iTunes or on Android’s Google Play

Wine critic score apps

A number of professional wine critics have apps purely to disseminate their scores, and tasting notes, with the requirement of being a paid subscriber. Fees vary.

Below are a few worth seeking out and considering subscription to. Jancis Robinson MW currently doesn’t have an app attached to her team’s Purple Pages tasting notes, which are available to her subscribers via her website.

Vinous: Wine Reviews & ratings

Access ratings and notes by Antonio Galloni, Stephen Tanzer, Neal Martin and the rest of Vinous team. Access an archive of more than 250,000 tasting notes, and articles on the latest releases.

Robert Parker Scores

Access historic scores by veteran wine critic Robert Parker at the touch of a button, subscribers only.

WineRatings+ by Wine Spectator

All of Wine Spectator’s official scores compiled into a handy app. The app also offers vintage charts, expanded wine education and a news feed.

All can be downloaded on iTunes.

Delectable

Delectable is similar to the Vivino app, in that it allows users to take a picture of a wine label, and instantly relays information on its vintage, price and tasting notes, which are available for all users to browse.

It also allows you to keep a record of the wines you have drunk and your thoughts on them, as a reference, while also comparing your tastes and rating with those of leading winemakers, sommeliers and wine critics.

It also offers users to ability to buy wines.

What makes it different from Vivino? Delectable also covers the world of beer and spirits, offering an all rounder tracker from your drinks.

Available on the iPhone and Android.

WSTA Trade Diary

An invaluable resource for anyone working within the drinks trade, the Wine and Spirits Trade Association (WSTA) diary app lists all the main wine and spirit trade events taking place across the UK, including tastings, seminars, exams and awards.

The app allows you to browse trade events wherever you are and to synchronise them to your own phone’s calendar. It also enables you to add your own event to the diary and view events on a map, based on your location.

Available on iTunes an Android.

Cellar Tracker

One of the largest cellar tracking apps available, Cellar Tracker is a label scanning app that allows users to digitally track the contents of their cellar, while also recording reviews and tasting notes. Search for a wine by taking a photo of the label, or quickly capture photos and notes of multiple wines for later reference.

The community database also lets you know what other consumers think about the wines you have selected.

Its database includes information on over 2.8 million wines, with more than 7.9 million tasting notes (from both its own community and professional tasters, including Antonio Galloni, Stephen Tanzer, Allen Meadows, Jancis Robinson) readily available.

It also offers a handy way to manage the contents of your cellar and track its estimated value.

Available on the App Store and Google Play. Find out more on cellartracker.com.

And finally….. Wine Picker

Wine Picker is a helpful app that helps you pick which wine to order with your meal while dining out, currently operational in the UK and US.

Drawing upon its database of restaurant wine lists, Wine Picker will suggest the best bottle of wine based on your taste preferences and budget at any given restaurant. Users can select their preferred wine colour, set their wine bottle budget, and the app will recommend the five optimal choices from the restaurant’s wine list. The app also offers food pairing suggestions, and profiles where users can share personal tasting notes, and also can search for nearby restaurants.

A reverse search function also allows you to find which restaurants serve a particular wine.

Additional features also help you to keep track of tasting notes of any given wine, and manage the bottles in your cellar by updating the app with its contents.

Available on the App Store.