Over the past 12 years, the iPhone has become a powerful tool that instantly connects users with travel (TripAdvisor), entertainment (Netflix & Hulu), lodging (AirBnB), transportation (Lyft & Uber) dining (OpenTable) and medical (WebMD) providers. After living in Sonoma Valley for the past 25 years, my knowledge of wine and wineries has been provided primarily by local wine makers and wine experts, so it never occurred to me to reach out to the App Store in search of a more comprehensive understanding of the small round fruit that so heavily influences our Sonoma Valley culture and environment. 

Here’s my top recommendations of iPhone Apps and websites that will increase your wine knowledge and possibly the size of your wine collection. 

Cellar Tracker (cellar-tracker.com)

Cellar-Tracker is the world’s largest collection of wine reviews, tasting notes and personal stories from wine lovers around the world. It includes over 3 million wines and 8 million tasting notes from the wine community (600,000 users) and professionals. It also features an online cellar management tool that tracks your collection and shows its value (users are currently managing 105 million bottles of wine). Wines can be searched by taking a photo of the label or UPC barcode. The consumption tracker allows you to track what you’ve been drinking –– from your cellar, a restaurant or winery –– and add your own tasting notes, ratings and label images.

Delectable (delectable.com)

Utilizing a sophisticated label-reading technology, Delectable is essentially “Instagram for wine lovers”. After uploading your wine bottle photos, the app recognizes the wine’s vintage, varietal, producer and regions. You can input the wines you’ve tasted, then shop, rate and describe wines which can then be viewed by other users, sommeliers and industry experts.

In the “Following” section, you can find friends, see their wines and compare notes. The “Featured” section includes in depth interviews with prominent wine enthusiasts and experts, must-try wines, Vinous favorites, tasting notes and “The History of Wine in Six Bottles”.  The interface is well-designed and easy to navigate.

Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant (fpwm.com)

Housed in San Francisco’s historical Ferry Plaza building, the 3,000 square-foot Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant store, which opened in July 2003, offers commuters (11,000 per day) over 1,000 different wines, 150 spirits and beer. Five years later, the founders opened the 1,000 square-foot Oxbow Cheese and Wine Merchant in downtown Napa’s Oxbow Public Market. They offer unique, small-lot, well-crafted wines to their eclectic customer mix of hipster city dwellers, commuters, international travelers and business people. Visit their stores in Napa and San Francisco and enjoy their wonderful offerings and one-on-one service.

Hello Vino

Starting with interactive questions, this virtual wine assistant provides personalized wine recommendations based on color, style, taste, occasion, pairings, price range and other personal preferences. It also includes a wine guide categorized by grape varieties and blends.

Vivino (vivino.com)

Vivino is an online wine community database that allows users to buy, rate and review wines. The wine database contains over 11 million different wines, 46 million reviews, and 135 million ratings. It is the world’s largest online wine marketplace and the most downloaded wine app powered by a community of over 38 million users. It uses community data (including photos of wine labels taken with your iPhone) to suggest personalized wine recommendations, making wine discovery and purchase fun, accessible and effortless for all wine drinkers. The “Shop” feature includes the “Editor’s pick of the day”, “Best rated of the week” and “Best sellers in California”. The user interface is simple yet powerful.

Wine Searcher (wine-searcher.com)

Wine-Searcher is one of the most successful and useful price comparison wine apps. The Wine-Searcher database and search engine bring together wines and prices from merchants around the world. It was created in 1999 and is now used by 10 million users to locate, compare and purchase wines. The database grows daily and is constantly monitored for quality. Manual and automated procedures are run daily to remove lists that are out-of-date or incorrect in any way. Merchants or wineries can add their price lists at any time for free.

It can answer questions about prices, vintages, market values, Robert Parker 100-point wines and the best wine stores in the country. There is also a Wine Encyclopedia describing in detail the world’s wine regions and grape varieties along with news articles from wine correspondents based around the world.

Enjoy your wine, and surf responsibly!