Snooth’s introduction of the iPhone Wine Pro app gives wine lovers a fun tool that simultaneously permits Snooth to amplify its serious content marketing strategy by expanding crowd sourced wine content to drive search traffic and wine sales revenue.  Snooth’s wide network of wine retailers benefit from the site’s consumer traffic of wine review readers and writers and Snooth takes a cut of the wine sold through it’s platform.  More than half of their roughly 200k monthly unique visitors show up through organic search, so Snooth has lots to gain to make it fun and easy for consumers to search and add reviews, always expanding the site’s content.

With the app, you can snap a photo of the wine bottle, enter the vintage and type of wine, and quickly get to the reviews and network of sellers of that wine.  You can easily add your own review too.  Sound like fun?  I snap a lot of photos of wine bottles for the WineZag blog, but never as organic search criteria.  Will more consumers access Snooth and its sellers to search, review, and buy wine because they have been enabled to skip half the keyboard entry process and replace it with the cool new TinEye image recognition technology?

I am just not sure.  But Snooth has a lot to gain, since the power of their crowd sourced content strategy is central to their audience creation and revenue model.  More content, more visitors, more fees on the wine sales generated for retailers.  For now the app will be interesting to play with, but it remains to be seen whether it is little more than a one week wonder, demoted off my iPhone screen for not adding value to the process cycle of searching, buying, and reviewing fine wine.  If successful, Snooth will have pulled off just one more example of the power of creating and using content to drive positive business outcomes.

Bernard Fouquet is an accomplished and quality Vouvray producer, focused on Chenin Blanc across 25 hectares and and seven vineyards that make up Domaine des Aubuisieres’ fruit sources.  All of unique character and terroir, they split into two primary soil types including clay/limestone or clay/flint.  His portfolio includes soil specific blends and vineyard specific bottlings.  On a recent field trip to Bin Ends in Braintree I snagged a few bottles of the dry 2008 demi-sec Les Girardières bottling for $18.  I have promoted the wine into my personal category of “Summer House White Wine for Serious Food Moments”.

Every year I try to find two or three white wines that I can stock my summer home with to accommodate our massive flow of visitors’ requirements for easy large group quaffing, serious small group tasting, and serious food accompaniment wines.  The 2008 Domaine des Aubuisieres Les Girardières will serve the latter.  It is a manageable 12.5% alcohol level, and as usual for a dry Chenin, it has kept its acidity level despite elevated ripeness and 25 grams of residual sugar, with the bonus of aging potential.   It will be hard to resist drinking my entire stock now though as an aperitif, with fish, chicken, pork, and charcuterie.

The wine has floral tones with earthy hints and (I might be imagining or romanticizing this) an inferred presence of the wet stone that is indigenous in its vineyard.  There is a full peachy toned flavor, mouthfeel, and richness to the wine that is so amazingly impressive, all the while buffeted by strong citric qualities of pure grapefruit.  Adding to an impeccably balanced wine is an immense follow through and finish.  The seriousness in the wine’s weight and its fullness in the mouth is impressive as it imparts fruit and acidity in gorgeous balance. The entire tasting experience was simply impressive and kept us shaking our heads in awe of its beauty.

I will be adding on and topping off the already good stock that I assembled last week to insure that even our Labor Day guests will get to experience Fouquet’s work.

I am guilty of choosing and patronizing restaurants with quality wine lists first, great food second.  Preferring  a reasonable level of symbiosis, my restaurant choices are disproportionately weighted by wine programs.  If this resonates and you are more jazzed by contents of a subterranean cellar than walk-in refrigeration, or you just need a dose of expert wine list advice before you leave for dinner, then you should check out WineChap.

I stumbled across winechap.com doing some research for a spot to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary.  The current emphasis is on New York, London, and Hong Kong restaurant wine lists, with hints of future market expansion.  It’s an amazing service of experienced sommeliers, trade pros, and some other wino types offering insightful, competent guidance on the overall list and specific recommendations:

WineChap fearlessly delivers news and reviews of restaurant wine lists in an independent quest for value, variety, and character. We spend our time poring over lists, so the only pouring you need to do is in your glass.

WineChap is a unique online resource. We provide you with access to real-time wine lists, reviews, and recommendations, and our selections cover a range of different budgets and occasions.

I really like WineChap’s sensibility.  You can search by city, neighborhood, restaurant name, regional strengths, value orientation, style of wine making, etc.  Lists are reviewed based on range of wines, list personality, and value for money.  The reviews appear to be almost real time and extremely current.  For example, here is the New York Balthazar’s rating:

List review date: February 23, 2010

Ratings Breakdown

Range of Wines: 16 / 20

Personality: 20 / 20

Value for money: 10 / 10

Rating total: 46 / 50

Glossary

By the Glass

Most interesting white / red available by the glass

Value Option

Our selection of the best wines in the bottom 20% of the list OR a particular bargain at any price point.

1st date

Impressive but not too showy:  circa $80 – but a wine that shows one’s connoisseurship rather than just size of wallet/expense account.

Off the Beaten Track

Unusual indigenous varietals/blends

Old School Classic

Classic (usually French or Italian – depending on dominant cuisine), from the middle of the list – a good wine, with age to stick on expenses and impress crusty wine bores/board members

Treat Yourself

Remember when you used to get a bonus?  not necessarily most expensive – but a real treat, rare, particularly good vintage etc

Crowd Pleaser

A guaranteed winner – nothing too challenging.  A solidly performing comfort wine which you are always happy to drink, even hungover.

Infanticide

Wines being sold too young, and a prime indicator of sommelier’s integrity.  Usually found towards the expensive end of a list with big names thrown in for several or more hundred dollars despite being years off drinking to that price.

Over the Hill

Old Dogs (knackered, well past their prime)

Oh the Shame!

An idiotic overpriced bottle of nonsense

House Wine Stats

Number of House wines available by the glass & the mean price

Krug Index

Price of a bottle of Krug NV