Tracking your favorite wines
I am a wine enthusiast (oh my, that sounds dorky). I subscribe to three wine magazines and listen to multiple wine podcasts per week (feel welcome to laugh). Some people like fixing up old cars or knitting or woodworking — I happen to like pairing the perfect bottle of wine with a well-crafted meal.
I’m not a wine collector, nor am I an alcoholic, I’m simply a wine consumer. I have never purchased a bottle of wine in a store that cost more than $50, and most of the wines I buy are under $20. I like to try new wines, and am interested in the background of a wine almost as much as the flavor.
A few years ago, my husband and I started keeping logs of the wines we tried. If we’re up for the task, we’ll steam the label off the bottle and rubber cement it to the page with our review. If we’re being lazy, we’ll just write the information down and sketch a picture of the label. Each wine gets its own page, and each page contains notes from both of us on flavor, vintage, and pairing. Our system is low-tech, but has been fun to put together. (We also have a separate notebook that I carry in my purse of wines we want to try and the notes we’ve collected about those wines.)
To make a low-tech wine notebook, I recommend hopping onto etsy and checking out their handmade notebooks. The one we are currently using is a laser etched notebook from Modofly (their store should be back up in the very near future).
Bay County Liquors in Maryland has an impressive roundup and review of online and computer software programs that are on the market for tracking the same information that we use in our low-tech notebooks. “Wine Log” and “Wine Snob” are two iPhone applications that track similar information. A benefit of using a digital program is that you can search the data much more easily than you can with a low-tech notebook.
If you’re also a wine enthusiast, check out the list of online and software programs that might suit your needs, download one of the iPhone applications, or consider starting a wine notebook. Any of the three systems will make sure that you never reorder a wine you dislike again!
Posted by Erin on Feb 3, 2009 |
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20 comments posted
Posted by Rebecca - 02/03/2009
There’s also http://corkd.com/
Posted by allen - 02/03/2009
Could you include instructions on how to properly steam off a bottle label? I’ve never been able to do it properly. I’m a beer-snob, and this sounds like a fun project.
thanks, allen
Posted by Erin Doland - 02/03/2009
@allen — I don’t think I do anything special. I put some water in the tea kettle, turn on the burner, and then hold the bottle over the steam from the kettle’s spout. I don’t hold it over the steam for an extensively long time. I just watch the label and when it bubbles a little bit, I stop holding it over the steam. I let it cool for a few seconds before touching it, and then lift at the label from one corner. I’ve found that if I let the label get too soggy that it doesn’t work as well. There is a sweet spot between totally dry and soggy.
Posted by allen - 02/03/2009
@Erin: I’m probably letting it sit there too long based on what you just said: Thanks!
-=allen
Posted by Gwynn (SereneJourney) - 02/03/2009
Ha! A fellow wino!
Since you’ve gone public…my wife and I keep a spreadsheet with the wine’s we’ve tried! Nerdy, I know but it works for us.
We track Name, Year, Type (e.g. Merlot), Country, Price, Review, and our own star rating. 5 stars is the perfect bottle of wine, 4 is excellent – not quite perfect, 3 is worth buying again, 2 not all that great, 1 is stay away!
At a glance we can figure out which wines we’ve liked and how much they cost.
I like your idea of hanging onto the labels though. I’ll have to give that some more thought.
Cheers,
Gwynn
Posted by kenneth - 02/03/2009
you should really try cellartracker.com (free or by donation)… it’s the best site out there and has the best community notes and features.
/twocents
Posted by Sean - 02/03/2009
This is off topic, but I think it’s interesting that you used the first two paragraphs defending your interest wine, while at the same time disparaging yourself for it and inviting people to laugh at you. This is a general trend I’ve noticed myself and it has me wondering, why have some many of us become such insecure cultural apologists? Are we so afraid to be cast as snobs? Whether you enjoy wine or wine coolers, enjoy and be proud of it.
Posted by Erin Doland - 02/03/2009
@Sean — I agree with you about owning up, but I sincerely think that all of the wine world is funny. “Wine enthusiast” … what the heck does that even mean? It sounds like I put on a cheerleading uniform and wave pom-poms in a parade. Yay! Wine!
Posted by Sean - 02/03/2009
@Erin – LOL! I’ve been to tasting rooms that could use some livening up with pom-poms. “Give me a ‘W’! Give me an ‘I’!…”
Posted by Linda - 02/03/2009
Take a photo of labels of wine you like and keep it on your iPhone to use when you are shopping again. On iPhoto you can make notes about your wine. Sure easier than steaming off labels.
Posted by Terry - 02/03/2009
I use Everynote for keeping track of a lot of things, including my wine. I am like you – a huge foodie and have grown up with having a glass of wine for dinner every night.
I keep a notebook on evernote for wine. I take a photo on my iphone of the label, add it to evernote and write my notes there. Everything is searchable, even the text on the labels. I use my own tagging to mark the type of food I paired it with and what my impressions were.
When I’m in the store, I can open the program and see my notes and the label photo I took. I can search the notebook for whatever I’m having for dinner, the type of wine, etc. It isn’t a straight forward system, and its a bit non structured, but it works within a system I already use and does everything I want.
Posted by Andre Ribeirinho - 02/03/2009
@Erin: Your first and second paragraphs perfectly describe the typical wine geek
I’m the founder of social wine discovery community Adegga that lets people track their favourite wines and share them with friends. I welcome you to visit us!
Posted by Marina Martin - 02/04/2009
Are you seriously sketching pictures of the wine label? Unless you really like to draw, take a digital photo and throw them up on Flickr (then others can see your favorite wines, too!).
Posted by AJ Lee - 02/04/2009
Actually, the WSJ wine writers are fans of the much neater & easier process of placing wine bottles in a warm oven. “Baking” them allows the labels to come off very easily & avoids the sogginess & subsequent wrinkling.
Posted by Tracy - 02/04/2009
Another good online (also pc or iphone) application is Evernote. You can take a picture and save it to Evernote. Evernote allows you to search by text that appears in the picture. You can create a notebook and tag your items.
Posted by Winston Baccus - 02/05/2009
Another plug here for cellartracker.com
I use it to keep up with the wines I have in my personal (albeit modest) cellar. And I used the Cork’d iPhone app to mark one of the bottles as consumed.
I review all the wines that I drink on CellarTracker and use the iPhone app CSV Touch to pull down a searchable list of my wine tasting notes and my wine wishlists using the .csv support from cellartracker.
The site is by no means elegant, but it is HIGHLY functional.
Posted by Cameron - 02/05/2009
I’m a “wine consumer” on about the same level as you (and some others in these comments). My palate is probably not as sophisticated as a lot of people’s since I can’t always tell the difference between wines. It just tastes like wine, you know?
I haven’t investigated the cellartracker.com or corkd.com websites, but I thought I should mention snooth.com, which seems to serve the same purpose. Though I’m a pretty big fan of low-tech solutions in general.
Posted by Michele - 02/05/2009
We tried to get into this, but we got too frustrated with it because we live in a liquor-controlled state and we couldn’t get our hands on anything the magazines recommended. It was so irritating! Now we mostly enjoy wines while on vacation, particularly when we go to Napa.
Posted by Matt - 02/06/2009
I went through this a few months ago and ended up choosing Cellartracker (free) and its accompanying iPhone app, Cor.kz (£2.99).
I like the fact I can do all the detailed stuff I like on the website and the iPhone app is simple to use when you want to see what you have at home (e.g. when in a bottle shop or supermarket), when you drink a bottle, or when you drink some wine you like but don’t yet have.
Posted by David @ Vinfolio - 03/12/2009
Vinfolio has just launched a new iPhone app. called Wine Prices. http://www.vinfolio.com/press-.....iPhone.jsp It provides the ability to search over 400,000 wine auction price results on over 10,000 individual wines and over 1 million US wine retail prices on nearly 200,000 unique wines. It’s a great tool for Wine buyers and sellers who need a comprehensive source for wine pricing data at their fingertips. It’s also a benefit to everyday wine drinkers who can access it when they are making wine purchase decisions at a restaurant or retail wine shop.
The app is available for Free at the Apple iPhone App store.
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