I am a self proclaimed “wine geek”.  I’m still early on my learning curve and I have a need to document as I learn.  So I have investigated wine applications for wine storage and for tasting notes.

After looking around for something that would work for both storage and tasting notes we came across Vinocella.  This iPad application seemed perfect!  We laid out our cellar and added our notes and then took it with us to wine country to add tasting notes as we went along.  The difficulty was in adding the wineries ahead of time so as to maximize discussion time with the person in the tasting room as opposed to standing in a corner typing the entire time.  Poor Michael ended up doing most of the typing and I did most of the talking.  And we found that we couldn’t get the details in on aromas and tastes as quickly as we would like.  Don’t get me wrong, I love this ap for holding my information, but…just before our last wine trip, my dear friend RuBen gave me a wine journal.  Now people get these and use them over the course of a year to put labels in and take notes….I however was taking mine into tasting rooms, so one trip almost filled the book.  The benefits: I would right the vineyard name on the first page and then I knew it was the same until I wrote a new name; I can take notes with one hand and hold a wine glass with the other (no two hands needed as in texting); and this type of writing allows for conversation while you are doing it, as opposed to typing something in.  The negatives….without my full vocabulary in front of me (even though I had the Vinography wallet card handy) I didn’t get the kind of detail that I otherwise might have.  I hope as I move forward I will get better at this.  Now it is just a matter of taking that information and inputting it into the Vinocella ap at home.

Call me crazy, but I can’t bear to taste a wine and not have it documented anywhere!  In my new geekdom I need to have it written down so I don’t forget.  I have not begun to really start to photograph wine labels, but that is coming.  And this morning I downloaded a new iPhone ap that allows me to scan wine barcodes and get info that way.  We will see…there are lots of aps out there and like wine, you just have to find one to suit your palette.