The work I do for my day job got me thinking about wine tracking / wine reviewing database sites. A recent project I was managing mashed together information from 17 web sites creating one global intranet site where 320,000 people view over 21 million pages each month. Over the weekend we launched the site and with a few minor glitches we were live for all to see on Monday.

Through my recent journey of wine reviews and wine blogging, I’ve discovered a need for a repository for the information. At the current pace, I’ll have a collection of 250 reviews by the end of the year. For me, keeping track of and referring to this information needs to be in a simple to use format. While many wine tracking sites are available, I’m reviewing my use of three: Cork’d, Cellar Tracker, and Vincellar.

Each of these sites has its strengths but I’m reviewing them based on my business requirements.

• I want a site that has easy entry of tasting notes, search of existing entries and easy recall of existing entries for comparison
• I want a site that allows me to easily slice and dice my entries by date, grape, price, score, etc.
• I want a site that is smooth, easy to navigate, and is not clunky or disjointed
• I want a site that provides the greatest exposure to the wineries being reviewed
• Nice to have: Connection to other wine lovers

Do you have a wine tracking site that you use? What do you like / not like about it? Let me know in the comments.

VinCellar

VinCellar stats indicate 74,000 users, nearly 600,000 cataloged wines and over 38,000 tasting notes. VinCellar’s unique feature is the ability to catalog, track and even sell your wine through their site.

The Good:

The user interface of VinCellar is spectacular. The tabbed navigation allows for easy access to your cellar, tasting notes, and the community. Well placed buttons facilitate quick entry of new wine and updating “consuming” wine from your cellar. Overall the navigation is smooth, intuitive and contains some unique features.  Each of the database collections is easy to sort, slice and dice for quick analysis of the wine entries.

What I Love:

VinCellar seems to love dashboards. I love dashboards. One of the coolest things for me is the tasting note dashboard that shows a synopsis of the entered wine including web pricing, community tasting note averages, other users who own the wine, and even a quick search menu of everything from Able Grape, Snooth, Wine Spectator and Wine Zap.

What I Don’t Love:

The lack of active users and tasting note entries often returns zero matches for comparison. Use of the search fields does not auto-populate with the data base. The community aspect seems to be focused on buying and selling wine, rather than sharing wine experiences.

Cork’d

Cork’d aims to be the “Simple way to review and share wine.” Cork’d has over 50,000 users. At publish of this article I was unable to validate the number of reviews in the database. Cork’d thrives on being a place where users can share and have a social experience with their wine tasting.

The Good:

The Cork’d interface is bright and clean. Users can easily create profiles, add buddies and use Cork’d as  a “Facebook” for wine conversations. Cork’d is also great at wine education and awareness with their database of grape profiles, winery profiles and the newly launched Cork’d Content that showcases articles about various wine topics.

What I Love:

I love the extensive database of wine and the ease of adding wine that is not already in the database. The format is also very conducive to conversation with other users through the discussion thread format on each database entry.

What I Don’t Love:

The navigation feels clunky and a little outdated. It is not easy to move from task to task, search or filter database entries, and slice and dice my existing entries. While I enjoy the conversational format and feedback of reviews, it takes too much time to find a consolidated list of comparative reviews. The database of reviews seems slightly larger than VinCellar but still returns zero results on some searches.

Cellar Tracker

Cellar Tracker contains the largest database collection of the three boasting nearly 100,000 users and 1.2 million tasting notes. Cellar Tracker is simple in form and function and its users are active. Wine collections can easily be cataloged, tracked, and the data can be sliced and diced seven ways to Sunday.

The Good:

The best part of Cellar Tracker is the vast amount of comparative data and the ability to filter it. The reports tab also provides an incredible amount of useful information about your cellar, tasting notes, and the community.

What I Love:

The search fields auto populate to aid in searching for the exact match. This feature helps to eliminate duplicate selection as it leads you more quickly to the selection you’re looking for. While on a selected wine (tasting note page) you get a vast amount of information including the ability to bid on user wines for auction.

What I Don’t Love:

Cellar Tracker is the most minimalistic in design. What the database has in data it lacks in navigation, and interface. The text based design is a distraction (to me) and makes using the site cumbersome.  Links on the site indicate that a new design is being launched in February (that’s this month).  The site doesn’t easily offer a way to connect or converse about various wines.

The Synopsis:

VinCellar has the best interface with the most effective and visual interaction with the data.

Cork’d has the most social site and a robust wine education component.

Cellar Tracker has the most extensive user group and data base.

I’m going to enter all my existing reviews (currently 70) into each site and experiment more with the best solution. In the end it may be necessary to use two or more of these sites to provide the greatest exposure to the wine reviews and the wineries.

What are your thoughts?