Frequently Asked Questions

Why was BottleCru created?

BottleCru’s mission is to make your wine experiences more enjoyable and learning about wines easy and fun.

Consistently finding wines you’ll love requires knowing the wine styles you prefer and selecting wines in those styles. A wine’s style determines the aroma, taste, aging and its best pairing with food. BottleCru is the only app built on a wine styles foundation from the ground up.

Use BottleCru to explore and the rate wines we’ve screened for quality and style and discover the ones you prefer.

It’s your palate don’t be swayed by other on-line consumers or points ratings. It’s not likely they’ll be a great match. From then on use the app to find, rate, pair, and manage wines in those styles for great experiences.

BottleCru was created by wine lovers and professional Sommeliers with the sole mission of spreading the enjoyment of wine. We don’t sell or recommend any wines for any compensation, what so ever! It’s a pretty bad business model, I must say, but it’s our passion and your gain! Please join us!

Why do wine styles matter?

Why do we present wine varietals/types as “Vinotars” in the BottleCru web-app?

Wine experiences and wine exploration are about fun and enjoyment, not about geeky factoids. Seeing and listening to the Vinotar SIP-clips™ is both entertaining and educational about the wines they represent. The Vinotars® provide a fun and easy way to help you remember your favorite wines. The more you know about wine, the more interesting you will find the SIP-Clips, as there are hidden meanings in them which become apparent as you learn a bit more about wine.

Is there a BottleCru phone app in the app store?

Not yet.  Currently the BottleCru app runs only in an Internet webpage. However, it is mobile-friendly, and any smart phone or small tablet with a fast web connection and standard web browser should work just fine. This web-app is available for free at www.bottlecru.com. A standalone app is coming in the future.

Why do I have to create a login account for the app?

This enables the app to keep track of the wine information you enter as you attend tastings and discover new wines. As you enter data, it becomes a richer and richer repository of your wine preferences. In it you will find your recorded tastings and your Styles Profile Scorecard. You can easily access it at any time, such as when you’re about to buy or order wine. Also, if you choose we can notify you as we add new wines and features into the application. Lastly, although the app is currently free, it will not remain that way forever as we add more and more information into it. Creating a login now will allow us to grandfather you in the future and preserve your free access to it. We can only offer this for a limited time, so please login soon!

Why should I trust BottleCru Recommended Wines™?

BottleCru Recommended Wines are matched to a particular style by a panel of professional sommeliers, who blind-taste them to insure style classification without bias. If there’s no clear consensus, they’re not recommended, period! This panel is led by a Master Sommelier, a wine professional who has achieved the highest level of wine certification in the world. There are currently only 233 Master Sommeliers in the world and just 147 in the United States. BottleCru has no affiliation with any wine producer and is constantly expanding its set of recommended wines.

What is the BottleCru Wine Style Challenge™?

BottleCru is partnering with a small number of wine bars in the Bay Area to host a fun and engaging wine tasting event called the BottleCru Wine Style Challenge. It presents a blind-tasted flight of wines in contrasting styles to showcase the different styles of wine. There is typically also a flight of cheeses specifically paired with each style to highlight the food paring characteristics of that style. It’s a fun and intellectually engaging process that demonstrates that wine styles control the wine tasting experience. The Challenge is also great for group interaction making it a perfect experience for a holiday party or team building event.