Friday, February 7, 2014

Tracking Wine with the Vivino App

Search ‘wine’ on the iTunes App Store and you’ll get more than 3,000 hits. 

Three thousand hits for wine apps! 

That many options make my eyes cross. 


Unwilling to sort through screen after screen of descriptions to find what I wanted in an app (which was help keeping track of wines I try), I gave up. Call it fate or excellent target marketing, but soon a positive review on Forbes.com for Vivino Wine Scanner hit my e-mailbox. 

I downloaded the free version of Vivino Wine Scanner in November. And scanned my first label in December after my friend Lori regifted to us all the wine that had been left at her office over the holidays. (Yes, Lori is a fantastic friend! And no, you can’t have her!)

Forbes called Vivino a wine app for “normal people”. I’d agree with that completely. All you have to do is shoot a picture with your smartphone, of the label on a wine bottle. Within seconds you have a detailed screen that includes your pic, wine’s name, varietal and year, region, average Vivino rating, average price, your rating and tasting note (if you choose to do either), other people’s tasting notes, wine’s rank in four categories, where you can buy it, winery, grapes, food pairing, vintage comparison, ‘average’ rating breakdown, when to drink and personal note. Here are screen shots from a wine I enjoyed last night at book club:



So far, I like the app!

This is my home screen. It reveals two of the three unexpected features I’ve discovered on the app:







Followers ~ I have one! I opted for push notifications and was surprised when I was alerted to my follower’s presence. As we all know, drinking really should be social.

Badges ~ I have six. The badges I have are for trying the app, scanning my first five bottles and scanning wines from different countries. Not exactly Olympic medals, but, come on.

Twitter ~ I can post my Vivino comments directly to my Twitter feed. Warning to those longwinded like me: the Vivino link gulped 62 characters of my alloted 140. My punch-line sacrificed for a link! Had I known, I would have simply said, ‘this Chardonnay pairs well with #OrangeIsTheNewBlack’.


Cheers!

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