Place yourself in that moment when you sit down at a nice restaurant, and have company to impress. Maybe you’re entertaining potential clients, maybe a potential spouse. When you are handed the wine menu — do you know what to order?
Some of us do. Yet many of us look for the few we recognize, ask if everyone is okay with that, and move on to a subject we can command with more authority.
The days of this dance could be ending, thanks to a new mobile app called Wine Ring. Released to the consumer October 27th, 2015, the app tracks your specific likes and dislikes to develop a tailored-for-you flavor profile. It does so with astounding accuracy by using a sophisticated algorithm that was 6-years in the making.
Where It Began
On a 7-week solo tour in Argentina, senior banker of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan covering technology, real estate and retail, Pam Dillon had a revelation. Spending so much time observing the laid back culture of the Argentians and their love for wine, she came to notice how the locals were, “so much more at ease when they talked about wine. They didn’t have the insecurities we do.”
She was determined to develop an app that would make those conversations even easier, to help people better understand their taste profiles and what they liked. Dillon began by enlisting a Chief Science Officer to write the algorithm. From there she sought out the brightest minds she could find in the wine world, recruiting five connoisseurs who held Masters of Wine, as well as five Master Sommeliers.
It took the team 6-years after that 2009 Argentinian trip to make the dream a reality – and after all that time, it is now ready to develop your own wine palette.
How it Works
First, find the wine you are enjoying from a database of over 500,000 labels from 14,000 geographical locations. Then rate it. Choices are simply Love It, Like It, So-So, Don’t Like It. The app then gets to work as the algorithm tracks your answers and begins to piece together your profile.
That’s it. Most wine apps muddle matters with talk of oakiness, fruitiness or whatever else, but with Wine Ring, the app keeps track of that for you. It’s like having your own Master Sommelier in your pocket. It knows what you enjoy drinking, so it’s the Somm’s/app’s job to keep track of these things — not yours!
Even better, as your profile develops, Wine Ring will be able to tell you if you’ll like a wine before ordering or bringing it home. Just search for the wine in the database. Then based on your previous answers, Wine Ring will be able to tell you the likelihood of your enjoying it or not.
The more you use it, the more accurate the app can be. Which is to say, if there’s an app that’s fun to use, it’s an app that rewards you for wine enjoyment.
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