Our reliance on mobiles in modern day society is greater than ever. In the UK, 8 in 10 people own a smartphone and it has become by far the most popular device for surfing the web. On average, we spend over four hours a day on them with half of that time spent on apps. With a plethora of apps now available are there any wine apps that can help you manage or potentially value your wine collection? Let’s take a look…
There are currently two smartphone wine apps that are particularly worth talking about: CellarTracker and Vivino. Both have become popular with wine lovers around the world and are used for managing wine collections, reviewing or rating wines and for sourcing merchants so they can buy their favourite bottles.
Below, we’ll briefly look at each of the apps, consider their pros and cons and whether it’s possible to use them as a reliable source to value wine.
CellarTracker Wine App
The CellarTracker website was initially set up in 2003 by an ex-Microsoft program manager to help manage his own wine tasting notes online. Since CellarTracker has become one of the leading cellar management tools on the market. It’s well-regarded for its large collection of professional and user wine reviews and tasting notes. Now, available as an app for both Android and iOS users, CellarTracker allows you to track all wines you have tasted and are currently storing, all at your fingertips.
Pros:
- It has an extensive range of over seven million tasting notes from both professionals and community users. With no conflicts of interest, the tastings and ratings are reliably unbiased.
- You are referred to Wine-Searcher when looking to buy a bottle.
- Interchangeable. You can access your account from both the app and desktop computer.
Cons:
- The interface isn’t the easiest to use
- Label scanning function is not as good as competition (Vivino).
- Inaccurate valuations for wine
Value wine with CellarTracker
CellarTrackers ‘automatic cellar valuation’ (recommended by them for wine insurance purposes), allows paying members to find estimated values for their wines. However, their wine valuations are provided by using a selection of different variables including a user’s own estimated values, an average of these wine values from the entire online community; and the average purchase prices from the community. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to generate an accurate representation of the value of the wines because these data points are based on historic wine prices (purchase price) or a user’s own interpretation of their wines value. Ultimately, these values can differ enormously between different wines and they may not even be based on any accurate wine market prices.
On the whole, CellarTracker is a great wine app to be used as a cellar management tool and to check out unbiased wine ratings and reviews. It helps you to monitor the wines you are storing and also means you’ll never forget a wine you’ve drunk (pretty handy!). For valuing wine we wouldn’t recommend it.
Vivino Wine App
Vivino is the most downloaded mobile wine app worldwide with over 25 million users and growing. It hosts an array of features, including price comparison, ratings, and reviews for millions of different wines. Its main selling point is its wine label scanning tool. Through the wine app you can take or upload a photo of a wine label and it will give you information like, where the wine is from, what grapes have been used, similar wines and styles, as well as, community ratings and reviews. You can also add your own tasting notes and ratings to keep track of which wines you like and don’t like, and more recently view where you can source the wine from in your country of residence.
Pros:
- Leading wine app for scanning wine labels. The accuracy is head and shoulders above the competition.
- It’s free to use all the primary functions.
- Very straightforward and easy to operate.
Cons:
- Limited selection of wine merchants listing.
- Not always 100% accurate on identifying your wine so does sometimes require manual input.
- Poor Trustpilot reviews.
Value wine with Vivino
Although Vivino doesn’t provide you with a direct wine valuation service, you can use it to help find a rough estimate of the current retail value of your wine. However, it is worth bearing in mind that wine merchants who are listing on the Vivino app/website have to pay for this service, therefore, not all merchants in your region will be available and you may be able to find a cheaper case or bottle elsewhere online or through Wine-Searcher.
As well as this, the retail wine price reflects what you would buy your wine for (not what you should value or sell at) so, it will most likely include duty and VAT, making the wine seem like it’s valued higher than it would be elsewhere. Therefore, as a means to value your wine, it isn’t particularly accurate without doing some manual calculations.
Overall, Vivino is a great platform to review, rate and purchase wine. It’s simplicity and straightforward approach makes it easy for anyone to use. The wine label scanning tool is unrivalled by competition and its users are growing exponentially. In terms of valuing wine, due to the lack of market transparency and that their focus is on purchasing prices, we advise against using Vivino as an accurate source for valuing wine but could be useful to give yourself a rough estimated value.
