Wine recommendation website?

[Ima Foodie]

I once heard about a site that would make recommendations based on your indications of other wines you have enjoyed. Does this ring abell for anyone?

[PurplePaperPonies]

You might be thinking of winescorecard.com I like the recommendations better than snooth.com, although their database isn't quite as large yet.

[domaine547]

I think you're probably referring to Bottlenotes. They're an internet wine retailer that aims to be the netflix of wine...i.e., making recommendations based on your likes and dislikes. You can sign up on their site and they lead you through a series of questions that supposedly helps them figure this out, and then if you sign up for one of their clubs, they apparently tailor shipments based on your personal taste. I have not signed up for Bottlenotes so I can't confirm that they actually personalize each club shipment...but being in the business and knowing how tedious wine clubs can be from a logistical standpoint, I find this a tad hard to believe.

I also have to agree with others that computer algorithms aren't really the answer here, and interaction with a salesperson is probably going to steer you in a more accurate direction.

Oh, there's another online club site, WineQ, that allows you to sort of create your own wine of the month club (in a more Netflix, create a Queue kind of way) and maybe that's what you're referring to?

[oolah]

Maybe this site? http://www.snooth.com/

I personally haven't found it to be very useful -- the recommendations are really broad and they often recommend big mass-produced wines because those are most likely to be available anywhere. Wines aren't like books or music recordings -- they're not fixed, identical commodities that can be infinitely reproduced so the Amazon model of "if you like x, you'll probably like y" doesn't quite work out on a large scale.

Like zin said, you're much better off just going to a good wine shop and establishing a relationship with a salesperson there.

[zin1953]

No, but any half-way decent wine shop can do the very same thing.

[Val]

Yes...just visited a mom-n-pop wine shop and the salesperson said exactly that: "well, what have you enjoyed recently?" Paired me up with carmenere...Calina Reserva that I totally loved (that was my first one!)

[zin1953]

A good wine merchant will always do that -- ask about wines you've liked in the past, and make recommendations.

A GREAT wine merchant will also ask you what you've had that you did NOT like, and why . . . it makes the recommendations even better!

Cheers,
Jason

[Eddie H.]

Very good points. One thing that the internet will never make obsolete is personalized advice from a great wine merchant.

~Eddie
http://oeno.blogspot.com