Hey everyone,
A couple of years ago my wife and I were standing in a wine shop trying to remember the name of a bottle we'd had at a friend's house the month before. All we could come up with was "the label was dark" and "I think it was Portuguese." We gave up and bought something else. It was fine. We did that same thing probably a dozen times before it occurred to us that we should just write things down.
So we started a spreadsheet. Then we went looking for an app to replace the spreadsheet, and that's where it got frustrating. Half of them assume you already know what you're doing and want you to rate acidity and tannin on sliders. The other half are a photo of a label with five stars under it. My wife's honest note on a wine is usually something like "tastes like burnt grapes," and there was nowhere to put that.
Vinarai is us trying to build the thing we wanted.
What it does right now:
Scan a bottle while you're standing in the shop and see in a few seconds whether it's a match for your palate. This one came straight out of that Portugal trip.
Your cellar and your tasting notes in one place, including the bottles you've already finished
A palate that gets built from what you actually drink, instead of a quiz you take once and never revisit
An AI sommelier you can just ask, in normal language, without knowing the vocabulary first
Dine Out, where you point it at a restaurant's wine list and the food menu and it tells you what to order. It works from what you already know you like, not from what an AI has decided someone like you ought to enjoy.
Taste sharing, so you can see what your friends thought before you buy
Tastings and events, from the invite through to everyone scoring the wines together on the night
Virtual cellar, mapping your real racks and shelves, is close but not shipped yet
The longer term thing we care about: the guy at our local shop remembers we don't like big heavy reds. He's really good at it. He can also only do that for maybe 40 regulars before it stops being possible. We want to give shops that same memory for anyone who wants to share it, so what gets recommended to you comes from what you liked, and just as importantly, what you didn't.
It's early. There are parts I'm happy with and parts I already know need work. I'd rather hear the blunt version now than a year from now, so if you try it and something is confusing or missing or annoying, tell me. The first 50 people who send us real feedback get a code for 6 months of our Sommelier tier. The negative feedback is worth more to us than the nice stuff, so please don't be polite about it.
That goes whether you've been collecting for 30 years or you just want help finding something under $20 that isn't terrible.
To get things started: what's a bottle you loved once and have never been able to find again? Mine is still that Portuguese one.
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