I develop crushes on wine sites. Some of them last only a few weeks, but others stick with me. I got hooked on CellarTracker! a few years ago and visit it compulsively every day. Ditto Chateau Petrogasm. My new crush is on Vinquire, the wine-searching site that delivers a whole lot more than its competitors in my opinion.First, it aims to provide you with information on where to find the wine you want for the price you want without charging you to see all the search results. Second, it has wine 2.0 built into it in the form of customer reviews and recommendations. Third, it has a blog built into it (the latest post was "how to spit with style," for instance).
But the best feature you won't see anywhere else is that you can find recommended wines by store chains. Albertsons, BevMo, Costco, Kroger/Ralph's, Safeway/Von's, and Trader Joe's are currently online, and it's great to check out what folks are finding there before you step out to the store and wonder how the wine you've never heard of actually tastes.
In exchange for an email and password you can set up an account that lets you submit reviews and thereby fully participate in the sites features. This account also makes it possible for you to access all your reviews in one place, so that the site can function as an electronic tasting journal if you are interested.
Two thumbs up to the folks at Vinquire for providing for free what other folks are charging for, and for adding features bound to make wine lovers even more happy. Now that it's the holidays, you are surely looking for some special wines. Check out Vinquire and see if they can help you find it!
11 comments:
Dr. Debs,
Thanks for recommending Vinquire. It helped me in find at least an extra bottle of '97 Trimbach Pinot Noir I loved.
Andrew
Thanks for sharing the info. I've never heard of this particular site before, and after playing on it, there is few other features that I particular love! If you can't spell - which on a typical day, I cannot - you can actually use the ~ option to aid in your search. So if I put in: Fons~, it will come up with Fonseca!
And, if you don't remember a wine the * option can guide you. For example, if I put in Tayl* port, I get Taylors Fladgate port!
Very well thought out and fabulous blog to boot! Great find!
I love CellarTracker! I've noticed some of your reviews on wines I have in my cellar. I'll have to check this new site out.
Thanks for the tip! I hadn't heard of this either, even though it looks like they're including us in the stores whose inventory they feature. Which is great! It seems up to date and we don't even have to give them a feed or send in spreadsheets. Woo hoo!
I haven't looked at the site yet, but this looks really useful and cool. Thanks for sharing. Tips like this are what make wine blogs rock!
Vinquire looks really promising. Hopefully it will keep attracting users as it will only become better as more people provide tasting notes, participate in forums, etc. I think it will become a great resource, and yet another wine site to keep me up late at night surfing the internet.
Just got finished checking out this site, per your recommendation, and I will be heading back. It's great! Nice site for when you are traveling and looking for a certain wine.
Hi Dr. Debs-
You're right, searching wines by store on Vinquire is a neat feature that the other sites don't have. But then there are also sites that have features that are missing on Vinquire. I'm very curious to see which of these wine social media sites is going to rise to the top. Currently we've got a whole slew of Vinquire-esque sites including Snooth, Winelog, and Corkd. They are all trying to accomplish the same thing but the features of each differ slightly. It all really comes down to usability and volume. Wonder who will get it right in the end. It's an exciting time in the online wine world!
Dr. Debs,
Thanks for the tip. Pretty cool site. Love your blog!
Great find. I'm a big fan of Cellartracker too. I use it all the time. I'll have to add this to my list of reference sites.
Glad everybody liked it. I sure did, too. Erika, I think that you're right--right now there are lots of folks trying to do this in some fashion. But I like Vinquire's approach which is straightforward,direct, not logo-heavy but user-friendly. It really reminds me of CellarTracker! in this respect. We'll see where they all are in a few years, but I hope Vinquire goes the distance. Thanks for visiting SB Wine Advocate--I put a link to your blog on the sidebar and look forward to reading it.
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