Mobile Phone Apps for Wine Lovers

[penegal]

I have now downloaded Winosphere and Vivino, but lack the computer skills to be an effective user of either of them.

Any tips?

 

[penegal]

I've also had the Dan Murphy's App for a while, but it's a bit useless - I think the website combined with Cashback is far more useful and user friendly IMHO.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

CellarTracker is one only app I regularly use. It has bottle tracking and reviews in the one app. You can also link your CT account to various professional subscriptions you have (e.g. Wine Companion). Pretty much only use Vivino when there's nothing on CellarTracker.

Also the wine-searcher.com website brings up reviewer scores if you really want them and don't have subscriptions.

 

[penegal]

CellarTracker is one only app I regularly use. It has bottle tracking and reviews in the one app. You can also link your CT account to various professional subscriptions you have (e.g. Wine Companion). Pretty much only use Vivino when there's nothing on CellarTracker.

Thanks AC - I signed up to Cellar Tracker from the other thread, so will try that one out too.

 

[buzz]

Wineosphere is very intuitive.

The main feature is the search function or barcode scanner. For example whack in seppelt and search and you will get a list of all seppelt wines reviewed by their team. You can sort using the the buttons up the top by points scored, vintage, name, variety or price. Pick a wine and read the review. In the buttom right is a blue box with a number in it, press this and it will take you to user comments about the wine in question. This is often useful when the review is old as some users will have tried the wine more recently and advise their tasting notes.

Note where it states the price. Press here and it will search a variety of online shops for their current pricing. This used to work really well, but in recent times I get the impression that some of the bigger players have shut their search feature down.

There are many, many more features to this app, so play around and see what you find useful or interesting. But for me, the above is the main use.

 

[Wozza]

I have now downloaded Winosphere and Vivino, but lack the computer skills to be an effective user of either of them.

Any tips?

1. Best tip for Vivino - use the phone app instead of the website.

There's less buttons and options, and it's pretty intuitive. I started using the app about 6 months ago, roughly the same time I joined AFF. Vivino is best for looking up wine reviews and working out where to buy a wine. If, like me, you like to give opinions on wine, then it's really easy to do too. It has a cellar tracker and access to the expert reviews, but these are premium features. And, at $80 a year, those extra features are not worth it when Cellar Tracker is (kind of) free.

2. Follow the experts and serious wine consumers.

To get the most out of Vivino, follow what the serious guys are tasting. In the top left of the app is a white face. Click on that to access your bio section. Click on the 'rank' button. That will bring up the top 50 users in Aus. You can 'follow' them by clicking on their name and pressing the 'follow' button.

Their wine reviews will appear in your news feed that automatically updates every time you log into the phone app. You'll spot that cheeky larakin - Wozza - in amongst all the serious guys. Most of the top 50 are rating around 3 to 5 wines a day, so I trust what they say. And a fair number of them are on here and buying the stuff we do from the mof_s and the like.

You can also click on the double face icon in the top right of your bio screen. The app can automatically search your contacts and, if applicable, your Face Book friends - but only if you authorise it to. You'll be surprised who uses the app. And you can follow their opinions and they can follow yours. If you want to stay private, and just observe, then don't connect to your contacts and friends. Just follow those in the top 50 or top 100 that look interesting to you.

3. Review wines

If you are using the app, you can take a picture of a wine label (click the big camera button). It usually brings up the correct wine and you can see other people's ratings, the average price paid, and the average score. There's all sorts of other info too.

If you don't want to use the camera option. You can do an old fashioned word search. Just click on the double wine bottle in the bottom left of your screen, then hit the magnafine glass, and enter your search.

TIP: It ranks the search results by winery name first. So you'll more likely get to a wine quicker in the search results by typing in the winery and then the main wine name. For instance, if you are trying to find the Seppelt St Peters Shiraz 2013, type in Seppelt St Peters and it will pop up in the first two search results. If you only searched against St Peters, then the search results are dominated by Peters wines from the US. The Seppelt comes in at result 6.

There's also an option to scan a wine menu for when you are dining out, or take multiple pictures if you are at the bottle shop. Click on the camera and the wine menu or multiple scan options will appear at the bottom of your phone. Both are really handy if you are not sure what to buy and want to make a quick decision.

4. Rate wines

To rate a wine, you'll need to find it using the methods in 3 above. When you bring up the correct wine, just hit the blank stars in the middle. They will turn yellow based on your rating and give you the option to leave a comment or tasting note.

All Vivino wines are scored out of 5 stars, with 1 star being don't buy up to 5 stars indicating you think it's amazing. There are no hard and fast rules on rating the wines, just use your own judgement within the 5 star scale as you see appropriate.

5. Read the articles

Clicking the small white icon with the 1 in it brings up the articles. I would recommend reading them, as they are often insightful and often cover the four corners of the wine growing world. They also contain the top trending wines under $20, between $20-$40, between $40-$80, and over $80. If you are not sure what to buy, these give you some useful tips on what wines are getting the top scores in their price bracket.

6. Find places to drink out near you

Click on the bottom right map icon and it will search nearby places with wine lists. I don't use this feature, but it will no doubt be useful when you are travelling to a new location.

7. Use the website

If you don't fancy using the phone app, then many of the features above can be used in your desktop. I very rarely go to the website, as I am happy with the phone app.

And just play around with the app or site, and click back if you get stuck. It doesn't take too long to work it out.

 

[penegal]

Thanks Wozza - very comprehensive.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

7. Use the website

If you don't fancy using the phone app, then many of the features above can be used in your desktop. I very rarely go to the website, as I am happy with the phone app.

And just play around with the app or site, and click back if you get stuck. It doesn't take too long to work it out.

The WP version of Vivino seems to be seriously screwed (sign-in is randomly not working) - I suspect that iOS/Android support is far superior

What I don't from the website, and maybe I'm doing this all wrong, is trying to find the reviews for a specific vintage. The summary says that there are "x ratings" for the vintage, but then it seems impossible to find the ratings/reviews for that vintage further down. Instead you get a bunch of reviews for all vintages mixed together (in some random order), and no dates for when the reviews where written. The CT methdology seems far superior - you get reviews/rating for a specific vintage, plus dates for each rating/review and they're sorted (by default) from newest to oldest.

 

[Wozza]

The WP version of Vivino seems to be seriously screwed (sign-in is randomly not working) - I suspect that iOS/Android support is far superior

What I don't from the website, and maybe I'm doing this all wrong, is trying to find the reviews for a specific vintage. The summary says that there are "x ratings" for the vintage, but then it seems impossible to find the ratings/reviews for that vintage further down. Instead you get a bunch of reviews for all vintages mixed together (in some random order), and no dates for when the reviews where written. The CT methdology seems far superior - you get reviews/rating for a specific vintage, plus dates for each rating/review and they're sorted (by default) from newest to oldest.

Hi mate. Good to hear of your experiences, even though they are not positive. I suspect you are right - all the development is probably going in to the Apps and not the website. As the website is the poor relation in comparison to the App. As an aside, I did add point 7 you quoted to not alienate those that don't or can't use the phone App.

I only ever use the website when I'm at work on the desktop, and want two Vivino pages open at the same time. I must have only done that 6/7 times in the last year. I've experienced similar issues trying to locate specific vintages too when using the website. It seems to cache the most popular and filter out those reviews that have less traffic.

I get the opposite issue when referring to Cellar Tracker! You get everything, and they don't seem to filter out the 100 point scores for an average wine. But, it does have excellent filters like - sort by helpful notes - and sort by tasting date - and sort by vintage. I am learning to use the filters to sift through all the extra data you do get. The database capabilities of CT are miles ahead of Vivino once you work out the filters.

In defence of Vivino, I do like how they are automating the reviews, indexing the top reviews at the top of the search results like Google does. You (kind of) get relevance and quality, but it comes at the cost of hard data per vintage and tasting dates.

I am glad I now have the extra CT resource. Vivino and CT each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and using both is adding to my knowledge of the wine I am considering whether to buy or not. Good spot, AC and well worth the mention on this thread for those that are considering which to use and invest their time in. At some point towards the end of the year, I may do a comparison piece. But I want to really get under the skin of CT before doing that. Happy Sunday ...

 

[AnonymousCoward]

This is what I don't get - on Vivino this is the vintage specific page for Petaluma Coonawarra that was drinking yesterday. It has a 3.7 rating up top of the page, but when you go to the reviews, they are all for other years. Maybe there are no reviews for the 1997, so it show reviews for other years?




CT at least only has reviews for the year you have chosen, which you can then sort:

 

[ste667]

I must be struggling more than usual but I can't figure out how to give vivino scores in .1 increments?

 

[Wozza]

I must be struggling more than usual but I can't figure out how to give vivino scores in .1 increments?

Hi Ste667. You can only score in increments of 0.5 on the App and website, between 1-5 stars. I then score in 0.1 increments in the tasting note (TN), and round up or down to the nearest 0.5. So if I score a 3.7 in the TN, I will round down to 3.5 stars. And if I score a 3.8 in the TN, then I will round up to 4 stars.

I score in 0.1 increments to help me differentiate between all the good wines. Otherwise, almost all wines I rate would get a 3.5 or 4. Hope that helps.

EDIT: I ought to add. I am one of only a handful of Vivino subscribers using the 0.1 (1-5) increment scoring system. Most stick to the 0.5 increment (1-5) default scoring system. And some use the 1-10, 1-20 and 1-100 scoring systems (the 1-100 being the most popular, especially outside of Aus).

 

[ste667]

Thanks Wozza. Had only really read your vivino reviews so far, so thought the 0.1 was a standard thing I was missing. You're right tho, there's going to be so many in the 3.5-4.0 range it's good to have a finer level of detail.

 

[Viridianne]

I've been using Delectable
You can take a photo of the wine and if they have it in the database, give you more information about it (including other user reviews, if any)

 

[Wozza]

Great little Vivino article on improving your wine tasting skills:

http://5 Tips to Improve Your Wine ...s/5-tips-to-improve-your-wine-tasting-ability

 

[Buzzard]

Great little Vivino article on improving your wine tasting skills:

http://5 Tips to Improve Your Wine ...s/5-tips-to-improve-your-wine-tasting-ability

Unfortunately I can't get the link to work :evil:

 

[carwashhair]

Hopefully this link works https//www.vivino.com/wine-news/5-tips-to-improve-your-wine-tasting-ability

Unfortunately I can't get the link to work :evil:

 

[Cruiser Elite]

I did download an App AOPIT - but no idea what it was - it read bar codes from bottle then supplied info on wine and pricing etc - any clues what it might have been? I downloaded it after it was mentioned here on AFF

 

[Deleted member]

I have now downloaded Winosphere and Vivino, but lack the computer skills to be an effective user of either of them.

Any tips?

only use when sober !

 

[penegal]

only use when sober !

Yeah - it is a bit like that... a few posts on those places seem to be PUTI.