The Ultimate Guide to The Digital Wine Universe

By Food & Wine
Updated June 16, 2016
Credit: © ShibaSommelier
F&W's Ray Isle offers his hyper-curated list of the best apps, blogs, sites and feeds.
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Top Apps: Winery Passport

Credit: © Winery Passport

Interactive maps allow you to search for wineries near your location; your "passport” is a personal log of every winery you've visited.

Good for: Travel tips

Relevant stat: 5,000+ wineries to visit

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Top Apps: Delectable

Credit: © Delectable

This triple-purpose app combines community photo sharing of bottles, personal wine ratings and ways to buy the rated wines.

Good for: Social networking

Relevant stat: 40,000 wines for purchase

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Top Apps: Local Wine Events

Credit: © LocalWineEvents.com

This app offers constantly updated listings of wine events in every major American city (and many smaller ones).

Good for: Event listings

Relevant stat: 4,500 events per month

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Top Apps: Cellar Tracker

Credit: © CellarTracker! LLC

A cellar-tracking app that's also a massive and often extremely helpful user-generated collection of wine reviews.

Good for: Community reviews

Relevant stat: 5,455,900 wine reviews

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Top Apps: Approach Guides for Wine

Credit: © Approach Guides

A substantial collection of regional grape varieties, it's searchable by suggested pairings and wine styles.

Good for: Wine Lessons

Relevant stat: 500+ regions profiled

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Top Apps: Wine Ring

Credit: © Wine Ring

A complex algorithm plus a gang of wine experts help predict wines you'll like based on your past choices.

Good for: Wine suggestions

Relevant stat: 5 masters of wine and 5 master sommeliers

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Top Apps: Wine-Searcher

Credit: Courtesy of iTunes

The granddaddy of wine-searching apps (and still the best); enter a wine and a zip code, and it locates nearby stores that sell that bottle.

Good for: wine buying

Relevant stat: 54,800 wine stores

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Best Ways To Shop: Online Buying

Credit: © Wine.com

Amazon.com
Amid all the books, shoes, digital music and flea collars, Amazon sells wine—a lot of it. Nearly 9,000 different bottles are on the site, shipped to 30 states plus the District of Columbia.

Wine.com
The largest online wine seller in the country shipped nearly 3 million bottles in the US in 2014. As of last year, it also ships for pickup at local FedEx offices, which helps prevent missed deliveries (as, for example, when no one over 21 is present to sign for the package).

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Best Ways To Shop: On-Demand Delivery

Credit: © Drizly

Drizly
One of the most comprehensive apps in the rapidly expanding alcohol-delivery world, Drizly coordinates with local stores in 18 cities, bringing wine (or beer and liquor) to your home in less than an hour.

Thirstie
Similar to Drizly, and currently operating in almost the same number of cities, this app also recently added The Craft, a platform offering wine-pairing advice, news, cocktail recipes and more.

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Podcast: "I'll Drink To That"

Credit: Courtesy of Levi Dalton

Levi Dalton talks to winemakers, sommeliers and other wine-world denizens. He's currently on episode 298. illdrinktothatpod.com

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Up-and-Coming Blogs: Not Drinking Poison

Credit: © Bertrand Celce

"A time capsule wine bar and restaurant like Le Bougainville perfectly embodies the simultaneous joys and frustrations of living in present-day Paris."
—Aaron Ayscough, notdrinkingpoison.blogspot.com

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Up-and-Coming Blogs: Wine Folly

Credit: © Charles Cotugno

"Rosé isn't made with a special grape; rosé is more like a state of mind." —Madeline Puckette, winefolly.com

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Up-and-Coming Blogs: Wine All The Time

Credit: © Tyler William Parker

"Boutari Assyrtiko: tart but elegant. It's like that one time Courtney Love went to the Oscars." —Marissa A. Ross, wine-allthetime.com

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Global Blogs: California, U.S.A.

Credit: © George Rose/Getty Images

Elaine Chukan Brown's in-depth interviews with top California winemakers (and occasionally others from around the world) are intelligent, incisive and detailed. wakawakawinereviews.com

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Global Blogs: Washington, U.S.A.

Credit: © Richard Duval

For his Washington Wine Report, Sean P. Sullivan lets readers participate in virtual tastings, rounds up news about Northwest wine from media outlets everywhere and posts photographer Richard Duval's gorgeous shots of Washington state vineyards. wawinereport.com

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Global Blogs: Loire, France


Credit: © Tim Graham/Getty Images

Jim Budd's frequent estate profiles bring the Loire Valley to life. He's also a sharp commentator on the region's wine politics. jimsloire.blogspot.com

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Global Blogs: Burgundy, France

Credit: © Bill Nanson

Bill Nanson's free blog and regional guide (with a paid e-newsletter) explain Burgundy basics and profile both villages and producers. He writes frequently and intelligently about one of the world's most complex wine regions. burgundy-report.com

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Global Blogs: Italy

Credit: © Alfonso Cevola

Alfonso Cevola's deep knowledge of Italian wine history informs every post he writes. acevola.blogspot.com

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Global Blogs: Spain and Portugal

Credit: © Jon Arnold Images Ltd / Alamy

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz focus on Iberian wines plus notable people and places. catavino.net

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Wine Reviews Worth the Annual Fees

Credit: © Vinous

Vinous, $120
Antonio Galloni, formerly of the Wine Advocate, oversees a team of six respected regional critics. vinous.com

Jancis Robinson, $107
Reviews, regional reports and op-eds from the premier English wine writer and her team. jancisrobinson.com

Alice Fiering, $68
For natural-wine fans, Feiring's newsletter is a must-read both for its articulate advocacy and fiery polemics. alicefeiring.com

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Best Instagram Feeds: @joseppituroca

Credit: © Josep Pituroca

The tasting life of the wine director of Spain's famed El Celler de Can Roca.

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Best Instagram Feeds: @clarecarver

Credit: © BigTableFarm

Great photos from the co-owner of Oregon's Big Table Farm.

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Best Instagram Feeds: @freshcutgardenhose

Credit: © FreshCutGardenHose

Clever cartoons illustrate sommeliers' comments on wines they've tasted.

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Best Instagram Feeds: @ShibaSommelier

Credit: © ShibaSommelier

Pictures of wine bottles with a (very cute) Shiba named Suki alongside.

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