By definition, an oenophile is a lover or connoisseur of wine. I’m no connoisseur, but I do enjoy drinking wine and have learned a little, yet I’m still hesitant to profess myself an oenophile. Regardless, keeping track of the wines I enjoy isn’t something on which I take notes, unlike many that would be considered a wine aficionado. As with almost everything, there is an app for that, and Drync is an app that almost any wine drinker can appreciate.
The premise behind Drync is simple: take a picture of the label, track your favorites with your own ratings and notes, and purchase the wines you like through Drync. The app, available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, is free to use. To get started, you can create an account, with convenient Facebook and Google+ integrations, and start taking pictures. After you shoot your photo from the app, you can rate it, add a vintage, tag your location, and share it via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or email. Drync then scans your photo and identifies your wine. Out of the dozen bottles I scanned, Drync only got two wrong, and there is an option to fix the entry.
Once you have your wine correctly identified, you can save your personal notes about the wine, inventory the number of bottles you own, and even add a location for where you enjoyed it. Drync also provides community ratings for the wine, other offerings from that winery, and if possible, the option to buy the wine through Drync. Ready to purchase? You can easily add your wine, if available, to your shopping cart and checkout. Free shipping is offered for orders of 12 or more bottles. If your wine isn’t for sale in Drync, you can ask to be contacted by the “Drync Concierge” once it finds it for you.
With this system for wine identification and ratings, Drync allows you to easily manage your wishlist for wines to buy, the wines you own, and the wines you need to restock. Want some suggestions? Drync features “collections” of different types of wines, contributed by wine experts and true oenophiles. You can also search for wines based on style, region, or grape.
Drync provides a social aspect to the app with the ability to add friends. You can allow the app to scan your Facebook account, or you can email friends to join you on Drync. Once there, you can see what wines your friends have been drinking and how they’ve enjoyed them. Live activity is also available on a feed, like a mini-Instagram, just for pictures of wine labels that your fellow wine drinkers are posting.
Don’t have a smartphone? You can also use the Drync website to manage your account and inventory. Adding photos would be a little more cumbersome this way, but most everyone has a smartphone that would want to use Drync. For me, Drync gives me the ability to keep better track of the wines that I enjoy. By providing a smooth app with an easy-to-use and attractive interface, Drync gives me all the tools I need to remember that great bottle of red I enjoyed last Christmas dinner and to buy another bottle for the next occasion.
