Do I really need another diversion? Yes, I do. Smartphone apps have kept me happily entertained or informed while waiting for a table or dining alone. I don't mind killing time these days.
My favorite app of the moment is Wine Ph.D., which I didn't expect to love so much. Yeah, it has an insane database of thousands and thousands of wines, and it's easy to search by name, grape varietal, region, and so on. Just for basic info, pricing, and tasting notes alone, it's well worth the price of . . . oh yeah, it's free. How could I resist? Now I can geek out at the dinner table, in the wine aisle at the grocery store, or at my friend's dinner party.
But my favorite feature is "My Wines," which lets you select and save a wine for future refererence. (Or, you can enter it manually if it's not in the database -- which rarely happens, but I did have to do that when I drank a just-released bottle of Pillsbury Wild Child Red that I got from Mr. Sam Pillsbury himself at the Old Town Farmers Market).
You can give it your own star rating, add tasting notes (helpfully, there's also a long list of tasting tags you can select), and enter where you enjoyed your bottle. It's basically a handy way to keep a wine diary, and is especially convenient when you find yourself chatting with the somm at AJ's (as I did recently), trying to find a special bottle. Nerd out!
