Over the years I have experienced the joy and challenges of picking wine to meet my ever changing fancy. For the first couple of years of my wine journey, I wanted nothing but german white wines - they suited my college days personality and allowed me to begin exploring the world of wine. I sought knowledge where ever I could find it-from Robert Parker, from wine magazines such as Wine Spectator, and from the better wine stores around Washington DC. However, when I went into a store, I either had to be armed with lists of what I wanted to buy or I was at the mercy of wine salesmen - some of whom were honorable and some who just wanted to sell their choices. Over the years, I have heard from so many of my wine friends who share the same challenge - the availability of unbiased wine information at the point where we are making choices in the retail store - or restaurant. To add complexity, as I grew older and found a great interest in food and cheeses, I had to relearn wine selection to find food appropriate wines for the food style and occasion. Now I believe that I am well educated in food and wine selection, however I always enjoy learning more.
 
Enter blackberry, iPhone and other smartphones. For a while I carried a windows mobile phone, then a blackberry - and now an iPhone. With all of the great apps on the market, I thought that there had to be a application to help me make smarter choices when it counted most. I tried Wine Spectator's mobile site - however that requires browsing large amounts of information on a small screen, which somewhat limited it's usefulness. I downloaded about 6 applications from various sources - but like Goldilocks - some were too hot and some were too cold - I could not find one that was just right. Until, that is, I borrowed a friend's Blackberry and downloaded a new app from Pocket Wine Assistant. Pocket Wine Assistant provides me with a huge amount of information when searching for wines:
 
- Ability to look up many wines and see winery descriptions, reviews and various ratings
- Recipe ideas that are paired for the wine that I select
- Pairing to more cheeses than I can pronounce
- Reviews on beer
- Mixed drink recipes
- A cool quiz/wine challenge
 

 
OK, so I'm not a big mixed drink fan - so probably I will not be using that feature. All in all, I found Pocket Wine Assistant to be very useful. The only problem is that I had to return my friend's Blackberry. Right now there is not an iPhone version - however when I looked on the company web site I found that it is 'coming soon'. While I gauge my own wine knowledge to be fairly advanced, I will enjoy using this new application once it becomes available for the iPhone platform.
 
Thanks to VinVillage for introducing Me...click HERE to learn more about PWA.
 
Cheers.