I was having wine with my favorite winemakers of Clos Apalta....Perfect day!

Good Morning!

I am not normally a technology person. It has to be easy for me to use and understand or I just will not try it or after being frustrated, I will say forget this and go back to using whatever worked before. But, recently I have found a few applications or apps that I really use often and enjoy…and I also learn something!

I have some apps that you have to spend some money to use, but mostly my apps are free. I have the most fun app in the world called the Wine Simulator. It is funny because it is a glass of red wine on the screen and if you move the phone around wine can splash around in the glass and if you tip the glass and pretend to drink the wine the wine actually looks like it is being drank and soon your glass is empty! Great fun to have a glass of wine anytime you want one!

I have several Wine Quiz apps. These are interesting because they will give you a question and you have 3 multiple choice answers to pick from. The questions are random and some are simple and some are quite difficult. It is fun to kill a little time and see what I know.

One of the apps is called Wine Genius, It lists out grape varietals and you can select the grape and then a huge amount of info pops up. It lists some of the facts about the grapes, where they might be grown, the characteristics of the wine, regions and the overall flavor profiles. Then once you select the wine you might want, it has a selection for foods you might serve with it to create a perfect pairing. It is a very helpful app and when I want to try something new I always go to this app to read up quickly.

Another app is called Wine Terms. This app is really packed with crazy amounts of information, it is a wine glossary from A. B. C. (Which is an acronym for “Anything but Chardonnay” to Zymology (the science of fermentation). Anything from technical terms to fun wine descriptors).
I use this more than I thought I would when I loaded this app on my phone.

I have an app that has all the United States A.V. A’s (American Viticultural Area). This is handy when I see a wine from an area I am not familiar with. I like the app called Vine2Wine, it is also a place to look up terms, vocabulary and grape varieties, this app is so easy to use.

I have an app called Napa Tour, which will walk you through taking a trip to all the vineyards and wineries in Napa. I need to find the app for other regions too! Wine Spectator has an app called Vintage Chart, it is really interesting…you can look up any bottle of wine you have and it will let you know if it is time to drink it! Since I don’t really cellar much wines for any real length of time, I don’t use that function so much but the app also gives you the Spectator score of the wine, which is normally a good indicator of quality.

My favorite app currently is Daily Grape. Daily Grape is kinda like wine TV….It is hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk (Crush It and The Thank You Economy)and he used to host a daily wine show that was 20-30 minutes long, but he has turned that format into a quick wine review and the info is fast paced and normally fun to watch…he is a big personality, so folks do not heart him like I do, just a heads up. You watch his episode and when he talks about a wine, you can select the wine and it will load into your shopping list and when you are at the wine shop you can find the wines quickly. Or if you are like me you can hunt down the guy at the wine shop and he can get you the bottles or order them for you. I like that Gary discusses his views on the wine and the approx costs. Sometimes he reviews high dollar wines, over $50, but mostly he keeps it real for those of us who are trying the $10-20 dollar bottle.

Each segment he does normally outlines 2-3 wines and many times he is in a location that is unique. You can create a “Wish List” for wines to buy in the future. There is a place within this app to rate the wines after you try them for future reference. It is a slick app and I use it constantly. I love the fact I can watch the videos on my phone too.

If you have any great apps that are wine or travel related, let me know what they are, I’d love to know more places to go for information and just some plain old wine fun.

I love to learn, I love to try new wines and I love my iPhone, I also love sharing with you where I get my information.

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi