databasing wine notes

I have started using the Palm's database function (Tungsten E, MobileDB) but it's a bit clumsy, at least the way I use it. (I'd like to be able to pick from a list of words, but I can only pick ONE word that way). I put R or W in front of the varietal to group the reds and whites together, but I don't have a provision for searching by percent. I also don't have much in it right now. I'm not very good at this, and thinking about what notes to put down distracts from my drinking (with food) enjoyment, despite its benefits later on.

That's actually an excellent idea.

Jose

Consider cellertracker.com

Pros:

-access whenever you have net access, not just at your computer..

-many wines are already entered - you can just do a quick search rather than typing in detailed information. This makes entering new purchases very fast.

-ability to enter public tasting notes and private notes, and (FWIW) to see other people's public tasting notes and opinions about drinking window..

-ability to upload your excel spreadsheet to cellartracker, and to download your cellar contents to an excel spreadsheet.

-ability to make entries (and notes) for wines you have purchased but which have not yet arrived to your cellar.

-ability to see average price paid for that wine by cellartracker users.

-since it is free, you can easily register and try it for a bin or two of your cellar to see what you think.

Cons:

-free, but a modest annual fee is required to see some items (like the average price paid by other users).

-need internet access to keep up to date.

-some of the insulation in my cellar is foil-backed, and consequently I don't get WIFI in there.

This gets complicated. Look at what cellartracker does. They've thought about it some, and it seems sensible.

See above!

I am a software developer and I been doing some work with Google Maps. I am putting together a winery map of Northern Sonoma County

If you go to that page and click on a winery you will see a comments tab, let's say you could add a comment about a certain wine or winery and have that information stored to a central database. For lack of a better phrase a wine blog.

Note: I do live in Windsor CA, but I am not a wine drinker so please excuse my wine ignorance.

Mike Utterback

Surprised more people are not singing cellartracker's praises here. I don't use it myself (I use text files!) but it is very popular. Just on that basis I would certainly reccommend you take a look.

I suggest you not re-invent the wheel - I use

---it's free, rich with good features, and I can export the data into a csv file and then use excel to paly with it as needed.

Of particualr value - often my wine entries are made whiel I'm on the road - by using an online tool, I can still do that.

Another vote for CellarTracker. I used Cellar! for several years, but CellarTracker does everything I liked about Cellar! but much better. And from your description it pretty much does everything you're looking for.

The common database of wines and tasting notes makes it extremely useful and easy to use. Out of the 250 or so unique wines I've entered, I don't think I've had more than 2-3 that weren't already there, so normally it's a matter of searching on one word in the wine name, and then clicking on the specific vintage of the correct wine and adding however may bottles you want to your inventory.

And when you pull up any wine in your list (or search for any wine at all), you automatically get other user's tasting notes.

I used to be more concerned about my database being on someone else's server, but those feelings changed when my Cellar! database crashed and I lost the previous year's entries. And you can always download a copy of your data from CellarTracker.

dale m