Seems that the App Shop has released their wine app for the iPhone:
Wine Pad is the iPhone app for wine geeks. Once you install Wine Pad, you will always have your wine journal with you; right on your iPhone. WinePad goes beyond the traditional paper notebook full of wine tasting notes.
With Wine Pad you can:
- Record your thoughts about the wines you try
- Rate the wines you try
- Take a picture of the wine label for future reference
- Look up wines that you have tried in the past
Wine Pad will also:
- Remember the wines that you really liked
- Let you browse your favorite wines by varietal, type, pairing and more
- Help you further your personal wine experience
Version 2.0.0 of Wine Pad includes:
- ways to record: wine name, vintage, price, rating, color, clarity, aroma, taste and personal comments
- lists of category descriptions such as type, varietal, winery, region and pairing
- a search feature to easily navigate long lists of tasting notes
Wine Pad is Coming Soon! Keep an eye out!
On our recent visit to Monterey, Terry, Guy and I discussed the possibility of an iPhone wine app that could narrow down and suggest a bottle from a restaurant’s extensive wine list based on a database of WS or RP ratings/reviews (which aren’t on the menu), food pairing, price-to-value, community rankings, etc. The technical challenge is getting the menu into the iPhone. Is it feasible to use the phone’s camera to capture the menu and use OCR to convert to text? The iPhone’s lack of flash and a dark restaurant might make it difficult.
This built in espresso maker looks very nice. I wonder how well it makes espresso and froths milk, though…
Zanussi’s built-in coffee maker
Kitchens were once such simple places; a cooker, a sink and a fridge. What else did you need? Well, following on from the flip down TV, you can now fit an integrated coffee maker into your ever-shrinking space. Zanussi’s ZCOF636 certainly looks the part with its modern brushed steel finish, it has a hot water dispenser for long coffee drinks or tea making and steam spout for frothy milk drinks, a built-in bean grinder and an accessory drawer for your cups and supplies underneath. And unusually for these machines, it can make two cups at a time. So no-one has to have the cold one. If you desire an endless supply of espresso or cappuccino, it might appeal. But before you dash down to the kitchen showroom, ask yourself when was the last time you used your existing coffee machine? Exactly.
One of the highlights of my Sonoma trip was a visit to Nalle Winery in Healdsburg. It’s a smallish operation (about 1700 cases per year) in the Russian River Valley. We made it a point to visit Nalle as my brother-in-law Guy, who regularly reads the Wall Street Journal’s wine column, saw this review (excerpted from The Wall Street Journal, Friday, September 16, 2005
© Copyright 2005 The Wall Street Journal):
A Winemaker’s Dozen
From Napa-Sonoma Tour, 12 Bottles to Remember; Going for the Charbono
by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher
Nalle Winery Pinot Noir 2003, Hopkins Ranch, Russian River Valley($38). We’ve been fans of Nalle’s Zinfandel for years, but this was a revelation: like fresh, ripe raspberry-cherry fruit warm from the sun and bursting inside your mouth. Light, fruity, with some spice and earth and totally winning, it’s the perfect wine for salmon. It makes us smile just to write about it.
Yes, the zin was indeed fabulous, but the pinot was outstanding and I ended up buying several bottles in addition to the zin.
If you’re tired of the same ol’ cup of Starbucks during your morning ritual, you might give Craven’s Coffee a try. An acquaintance of mine picked this up in an Aspen grocery store and it has great flavor. The proprietor, Simon, still does everything by hand (roasting, blending, bagging) using small batches. If you can’t get it locally, you can order from their website.
http://www.cravenscoffee.com/
We’re having an awesome time at this year’s event. The Cook Off at the St. Regis just finished up and the winners included Jacque Pepin and Ming Tsai. I should have some photos and videos in the Gallery by Monday.
