SUMMARY
VINOLUMBIA tracks the wine you enjoy on any device, anywhere, anytime. Period.
SIMPLE RATINGS
CASE – As in, “I’d buy a CASE of that.” | Truly great wine – you will not be disappointed.
BOTTLE – As in, “I’d buy a BOTTLE of that.” | Solid, lovely wine – often as good as CASE-rated wines but price or limited appeal lead to lower rating.
GLASS – As in, “I’d buy a GLASS of that.” | Still very good, but not particularly special. A GLASS-rated wine might be your house red or white if your house were a restaurant.
A wine worth rating, is a wine worth buying again. If you wouldn’t repurchase, don’t rate.
$15 – Close to $15 per bottle (often less – look at actual review for exact price)
$25 – Close to $25 per bottle ($21 to $35 – look at actual review for exact price)
$50 – Close to $50 per bottle ($36 to $1200 – look at actual review for exact price)
$15 $25 $50 are the three initial price-point classifications. As reviews grow in volume, additional price-points may be added if needed or useful [Q. Would you really want to miss out on a great wine that cost $12 because you could filter by a $10 price-point?].
LOCAL AVAILABILITY
Reviewed wines are always available locally near Columbia, MD at one of our usual stores.
If you want to remember the 1982 Château Margaux you had in Paris or the wine you tasted at that tiny little Vineyard when you were biking through Napa, you need to track that somewhere else. Nothing is more frustrating than being out shopping for a wine that isn’t even available in your state. That said, special wines that can be ordered for delivery may make an occasional appearance.
HOW VINOLUMBIA WORKS
GENERAL USE: If you stumbled upon this site and like how we rate and review wines, welcome. We are glad you are here. Please feel free to comment on any wine reviews or get in touch about anything else. If you find the site useful, please consider leaving a tip to help offset annual website costs (see green “VINOLUMBIA | TIP JAR” button).
VINOLUMBIANS: If you are registered and reviewing wines, please remember all it takes is an email. Snap a photo with your phone, taste, write a brief review, and send it to the special email address you were given when you registered. Sending a review should take about as much time as opening two bottles of wine.
If you want to become a VINOLUMBIAN, that’s great. You can apply here. Please know that you have to enter the email address of an existing member to vouch for you.
VIDEO
Watch embedded or click Full Screen icon [ ] in bottom right of video control for *cough* older eyes….
WHY BUILD VINOLUMBIA ?
Ideal wine shopping is fantastic. You take your time. You go to your favorite local store. You browse. You taste. You talk to the owner. You pull out your phone and Google a particular wine, you launch your favorite wine app, ….
Real wine shopping is frustrating. The reality is you’re often in a hurry, you’re frazzled, you’re coming from work, your kids are impatient — even if you get them lollipops at checkout [thanks, Decanter] — or, you are on your way to dinner with friends and just want to know you are taking something good. In these moments you wish there were something you could pull up on your phone that would show you what’s good, tell you what your friends are drinking, remind you what you’ve already purchased and reviewed, and, most importantly, list what’s available at the stores where you usually shop. Welcome to VINOLUMBIA.
We are trying to make wine reviewing and wine shopping simple. Pull out your smartphone, go to https://vinolumbia.com and easily find a good wine.
Yelp is a great model for reviewing restaurants — crowd-sourced reviews and easy to understand ratings. VINOLUMBIA aims to bring a similar model to hyper-local wine buying with a much smaller crowd. You should be able to search by rating, by price, by store, and combinations such as “REDS + CASE + $15 + PineOrchard” to find all the wines at PineOrchard rated at the CASE level that only cost around $15 per bottle. Of course, these combined categories will grow organically as more and more wine is rated.
Lastly, please know that this is a work-in-progress being put together by friends who just enjoy decent wine and wanted a simple way to track what we all are drinking. We’ll see what happens.
