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The BottleCru® App     
    Four steps to increasing your enjoyment of wine & food:    
  1. Let our app guide you through the distinctive styles of the classical varietal wines & blends and where they typically come from.
  2. Taste through those wine styles to discover & record your preferences.
  3. From then on order and purchase wine in those styles & enjoy them with foods and cheeses that pair best with them!
Why Wine Styles Matter!
    Some functions for more committed wine lovers:    
  1. Create and manage a wine inventory of your personal wine collection.
  2. Discover new varietals & blends to try based upon their style taste profiles.
Exploring Classic Wine Styles
Discover wines by Varietal, Blends or Taste Profiles
Discover your favorite varietal wine styles by exploring wines with our Vinotars® as guides    
Each wine Classic varietal and Blend in our app is  represented by a Vinotar®. For example, Chardonnay's Vinotar is Charlotte. Each also has a number of distinct styles with descriptive nick-names. Charlotte's three are Big Charlotte™, Cool Charlotte™ and Racy Charlotte™. The Vinotars introduce themselves in SipClips™ short animated clips to help you discover and remember their styles. A wine's grape varieties only tells half the story. It’s style ultimately defines its smell and taste! Use the BottleCru app to discover the smell and taste of a wine's different styles, and taste them preferably side by side, to discover your favorites.
Intro to Vinotars®
For an introduction to Charlotte Chardonnay in the app, just Tap Her SipClip Button!
Discover, easily remember and communicate wine styles and their key differences
Each wine Vinotar® (varietal/blend) in the app has a word-cloud page describing each of its styles. It shows their key overall style character, aroma and taste "markers" for easy recognition and recall. Each also has the style name in bold just above. Each style also has a "style page" with more detail about it. Just TAP on the word-cloud and you'll see its style detail page.
Explore the aromas and taste profiles of each wine style, see where they often come from and get recommendations of other to try
Each wine style details page explains in words and with thumbnail pics the key aromas and tastes of the style. It also often has other key style details such as the wine's texture or level of crispness (acidity) or alcohol level. Theses screens emphasize the style differences to help you differentiate them from each other

In addition, these pages also list regions/appellations that often produce that style. This can help you find wines of a specific style or help confirm that a wine being sold or served to you is in that specific style.  It's a very useful tool but not a guarantee of the wine's style, that's what our recommended wines are meant to be.

Lastly, if this wine style is one of your favorites, you'll see recommendations of other wine styles to try too. (Insider-tip---In a pinch, these other wines will also stand-in as an alternative food pairing partner.)

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Find food and cheese parings for each wine style using the Go-To Food Pairings feature     
Combining wine with food affects both in complex ways and also is affected by personal taste preferences.  But the simple parings typically offered which recommend a base food with a wine, such as chicken with Chardonnay, not only don’t consider your personal taste preferences, but also don't consider several issues which affect the pairing, such as how the chicken is prepared and what other ingredients are in the dish. This part of our app starts with each wine style and then recommends several specific complete classic food dishes and cheese parings (listed on the bottom) which have proven to be widely successful with that style.
Experiencing & Recording Wine Style Experiences

Identify and select wines of a specific wine style using the BottleCru Curated Wines™ 
Once you've explored a specific wine style's major attributes, go ahead and taste it. It's truly the only way to learn if you like it. The Recommended Wines features lists wines of a the particular style, indicates where it comes from, its alcohol level and what price range you can expect it to be in. Sort them by Producer Name, Vintage or Price Range, or just use text input to search them.See which professional Somm recommended them and search for them on the web by tapping on the label icon.
Record your ratings of wines with the My BottleCru™ Record A Tasting feature    
Use the Record A Tasting feature to store reviews of all the wines you taste, not just BottleCru Recommended wines but about 225 wine types, so you can store all your wine experiences in one place. You can also store images of wine labels taken within the app or from the camera role on your smart phone. Go ahead and use voice input for common names, terms and numbers for fill-ins. Put in an Appellation and the app will fill-in its region and country automatically or edit it yourself. You also update the image and or rotate it.
​The My Tasting History™ will maintain a chronological list of those reviews and by tapping on a specific review icon, you can review, edit or delete the tasting.
You can also post your reviews on your Facebook page or Twitter account with comments added from right in the app. You can also email your reviews.
Review a summary of your wine style ratings by using My Wine Styles Scorecard™ feature            
 The app automatically creates a Wines Style Scorecard™ that statistically summarizes your tasting reviews (star ratings) of each wine style and across all wines tasted. It also shows the number of wines of each style you've reviewed and highlights, yellow circles, your favorite style, when you've tasted all of them. Hint: Be sure to try a wine style several times, in order to gain confidence in your style preferences.
If you tap on a style you will see wines that contributed to that scorecard rating.
Zero star rated wines will not be included in style scores as that is meant for flawed wines.

Learning to taste like a professional.
Get the most out of your tasting experiences by following our BottleCru Tasting Guide™ feature            
The application has a Tasting guide™ to help you have the best experience when tasting a wine for evaluation. Follow it to have an effective tasting experience when comparing wines. When you have some time, listen to all the recommended steps to follow. Some of them even include insider tips. For example, it highlights the effects of temperature on wine. Then when you're actually tasting through wines you can  just use the summary screen to remind you of the recommended steps.
Finding/Ordering wines in your preferred styles.
 Find wines in your preferred styles and price range in the BottleCru Curated Wines™ section of the app.
This will help you order a wine of your preferred wine styles when you are at a wine store or restaurant. The wines are listed categorized by style, in alphabetical order by Producer name and show the range of average retail prices. But you can sort the wines by Producer Name, Vintage and Price Range. The application also provides you style word clouds to help you communicate those styles to servers in wine bars, restaurants and retail shops. These are commonly understood descriptors used by wine professionals, and can help you to easily communicate your preferences. It should help make the whole wine ordering experience simpler, more accurate and less stressful.

You can find wines by style or by text search. Just input the wine type, style, producer separated by spaces. You can also select by price if you input dollars signs as a last item on the list.

You can also input a wine's region/appellation/country of origin which can strongly suggest a wine is of a particular style. But only the recommendation of a knowledgeable wine professional who has tasted that specific wine release or its inclusion in the BottleCru Recommended Wines listings will guarantee its style.
Confidently select and order the wines you prefer in "high pressure" restaurant situations following the steps in the BottleCru Dining & Ordering Guide™ feature   
Ordering wine in a fine restaurant can be an intimidating experience to just about everyone! We feel you'll do it with more confidence by following the nine simple steps in the app’s Dining & Ordering Guide. You may want to read and  listen to the steps before you go out, and then just glance at the summary when ordering, to refresh your memory. (Even if you feel confident when ordering, this guide might teach you some useful tricks.)
BottleCru Food Pairing Guide™
Pairing wine to food & food to wine

Find wine styles that pair well with the foods you've selected or are planning to serve with the BottleCru Food Pairing Guide          
The BottleCru Food Pairing Guide™ starts from the food perspective. The app recommends specific wine styles to pair with the foods or cheese you select. It lists wine recommendations that have been successful, in order, with the mostly highly recommended listed first.

The app is the most comprehensive food pairing app available with 100s of foods & cheeses and 1000s of suggested pairings. The app groups dishes into major categories which should make finding a dish easy. It includes both major base foods and ethnic groups.  It also includes  a group of suggested entire menus and wine pairings for special holidays and events.

It also provides key word text search and can even use voice input if your phone supports it. So even if the meal you're pairing is not exact match for a dish in the app, if you input the key words of your dish, the app will find the meal or sometimes something named very similar. (Cheeses are text searchable  by milk type, cheese type, hardness and aging.)
Get a list of wine styles that pair well with a specific dish or cheese  and  see your own star ratings of those styles 
After you select the first dish or cheese you want to pair with, tap on it. The first blue knife & folk "icon" indicates that the app is showing recommenced pairings for that dish. The wine styles are listed in order of our preference, but they are all great parings. So feel free to pick any that best fit your palate and they should pair very well! The stars show the average ratings of your stored tasting of those styles!
If you then tap on the wine styles recommended, the app will show you the distinguishing characteristics of those styles and you can also see the appellations that typical produce that style.
Get a list of all the wine styles which pair well with a specific category of foods      
After selecting a meal category, tap on the wine bottles "icon" to see a list of all the wines that pair well with that food category. This allows you to consider a set of different dishes that pair well with a specific wine style, you want to taste or serve. This is especially useful in finding cheeses that pair well with a wine you selected.
Find wines which pair well with multiple dishes using our Multi-Meal Paring feature (patent pending)     
To find a wine that pairs with two meals, first select the first meal you want to pair, then tap the second blue knife & fork "icon", then find the other meal you want to pair. The app will only list dishes that have recommended wine pairings in common for both dishes. Then tap on the second dish to see the list of recommended wines for both dishes. This makes sharing a single bottle wine easy without sacrificing great wine and food pairing.
Manage Your Wine Collection
Create and manage an inventory of your wine collection
The app makes it easy to create and manage a personal wine inventory.
You can-
  • add, edit & delete descriptions of each wine and even the foods you paired with it
  • if you're unsure of a wine's style, let the app automatically select it based on the application it's from
  • record where each wine is stored
  • record notes about the wine
  • capture an image of the wine label
  • search the web for wine reviews, prices and locations to purchase the wine
  • view either your entire or just a subset of your wine collection
  • convert any wine to a stored tasting
  • Allow the app to
    • automatically insert an optimal drinking window based upon wine style and vintage
    • automatically suggest serving the serving temperature and decanting times
  • Export your inventory as an excel spreadsheet​​​
The app allows you to input a : "Best Drinking Window" which is mean to be a  range of years to best enjoy the wine, if you know it. The second date  is the date by which we strongly recommend you plan to consider consuming the wine, as it is likely at "Peak Aging Development". The app will remind you by flagging the image of  the wine label with a "Sand Clock Image" when that date occurs. If you insert a both a wine type & wine style it can also auto-fill that date for you. But you can delete it or over ride it if you desire.

The app also flags wine that are deemed "Too Young To Drink" for full enjoyment and will benefit from further bottle aging. It shows a Exclamation Warning Symbol on those wines.

It also possible to Load an Existing Wine Collection you have in another computer application into the BottleCru app. All you need to create a CSV formatted Excel spreadsheet or equivalent in the format of the attached file (first line is a sample input). Send that file to support@bottlecru.com with your contact information.

Search/Manage your wine collection
You can text search the inventory using any key words including;  Producer, Wine Type, Wine Style, Release Name, Storage Location, Appellation, etc.
 Even partial key words will bring up the wines that are a match, use quotes for exact matches.
You can also sort your inventory by Producer Name, Vintage and Price Range. Lastly to help you keep a well-stocked inventory you can see an inventory by wine type and style. You can even sort by the star ratings you gave each wine the last time you tasted and rated it.
You can also export the inventory in Excel format.
Finding Wines To Try
Investigate wines that match your preferences
If you know you prefer certain wine styles, you can easily find new wines to investigate and taste by starting with wines of similar style. The app provides several Taste Profile to choose from. Including; Sweeter, Sparklers, Reds, White, Pink, Sweet & Desert wine profiles.
You can also get some information about a wine's likely style and serving hints by using the "About This Wine" function in the app.
Discovering A Wine's Style
Investigate a wine's style based on it's label
Using the About This Wine function you can ask the app tell you about a wine. If the wine is a BC Curated wine, the app will tell you it's style based upon the Wine Type, Producer, Vintage and Appellation of the grapes origin. It will also provide based upon that wine's specifics, an optimal drinking window, provide the style's specifics.


If it's not a Curated Wine, the app will give an educated guess based upon it's knowledge of wine type, styles, and  appellations.
 If it cannot make an educated guess, Tap the View Wine Style Details button to see the different styles for that wine type so that you make an educated guess.

Then It will also list alternative BC Curated wines you can select from to assure you're getting the style you want.

The app will also allow you to add easily the wine wine to you Add To You Tastings  or to your Wine Collection and the later make any edits, such as adding a label image to the stored information.
Learning wine Lingo
Decode the key terms surrounding the world of wine     
Some of the terms and vocabulary associated with the world of wine are confusing to new wine consumers. The BottleCru Lingo™ feature explains them. We also explain the meaning of the icons used in the app.