Wine Ratings Guide iPhone App

M. Quinn Sweeney is a San Francisco based artist, educator and entrepreneur. When he's not working one of his 6 jobs, Quinn writes about booze on LibationLab.com...

They should have called this app, "Single Man's Salvation," because The Wine Ratings Guide from Nirvino has paid for itself many times over in the few weeks since I downloaded it.



Search for a wine you see on a menu or store shelf, and you get a tight synopsis that includes a picture of the label so you know you are looking at the right bottle, a straight-forward rating on a 5-star scale, the flavor profile (so you can pretend you really do taste cherry, oak and barnyard, but don't be the one to start that conversation or you will sound pretentious), food pairings, and retail price. Note: three times the retail price is standard for a restaurant, so keep an eye out because some will try to take advantage with a bigger mark-up.

Unlike every other wine app I've toyed with, when you look up a bottle, it will actually show up on The Wine Ratings Guide, because they have over a million bottles in their database. The latest build of the app also delivered my favorite feature, the "Quick Picks" button, which offers lists of the best wines by location, and currently features a number of "Ten Best Wines Under $20" lists for the big grocery and liquor store chains, so I no longer stand staring at a wall of bottles for hours wondering what I've gotten myself into.



The Wine Ratings Guide is the best $2 I've ever spent on an iPhone app (the I Am T-Pain auto-tuner app cost me $3). Its simple, fast and straight-forward design has saved me time, cash and embarrassment at the liquor store en route to a dinner party, rescued me from spending a week wandering the grocery store wine aisles, and out for dinner, it kept me from looking like a chump in front of the pretty brunette while protecting me from being taken for a ride by the sommelier.

Tip: many restaurants post the wine list and menu on their website. Before a dinner date, check it out online with iPhone in hand and memorize three or four diverse bottles that are excellent and reasonably priced. If that fails, just be sure to taste and comment first that it's amazing and she'll likely defer to your appearance of expertise, because none of us really know what the hell we're talking about anyway.
Get the Nirvino Wine App here.

Want more about wine? Check out Food2's Thanksgiving Cocktails & Wine Pairing here:

(pictured: The Maple Mocktail)