People ask us this a lot. Someone is standing in front of a shelf, or holding a bottle a friend brought round, and they want to know which wine app is worth putting on their phone.
The honest answer from us is Vivino. That is the one we open when we want to scan a label or save a wine we liked. But one app on one phone is not the whole picture, and there are apps out there doing things Vivino does not do at all, from tracking what a cellar is worth to finding a bar that pours natural wine.
So this is a rundown of what is actually available in 2026, twelve apps, what each one is for, and what real users say about it. Pick the one that fits how you drink and try it yourself.
Quick answer
- Best all-rounder: Vivino, for label scanning and community ratings
- Best for finding a bottle in the UK: Wine-Searcher
- Best for a serious collection: CellarTracker
- Best looking cellar app: InVintory on iPhone, Oeni on Android
- Best for expert scores: Vinous, or Wine Spectator if you already follow their ratings
- Best for learning: Sommo
- Best for a night out: Raisin
If you only download one, make it Vivino. If you have a cellar worth tracking, add CellarTracker.
How to read this list
For each app we give you what it is for, what it costs, which phone it runs on, and the store rating with a summary of what reviewers actually say, good and bad.
The ratings and review themes below come from the UK Apple App Store and Google Play, checked in September 2026. They move, so treat them as a snapshot rather than gospel. This is a guide to what is out there, not a head to head test.
One thing worth knowing before you start. A wine app is only useful if it works on the wines you actually drink, and a lot of the big apps are built around French, Italian and Californian bottles. We come back to Portugal at the end.
Scanning and discovery
1. Vivino
The biggest wine app in the world and the default for most people. Point it at a label and you get a rating, tasting notes and what other drinkers thought.
- Best for: anyone who wants to scan a label and get a quick verdict
- Ratings: 4.8 from around 29,000 ratings on the UK App Store, 4.6 from around 231,000 reviews on Google Play, where it has passed 10 million downloads
- What reviewers say: quick, simple and packed with information, and the scanning works well. The complaints are consistent too: people feel it has been pushed too hard towards selling, the interface has grown confusing, and crowd averages flatten out the interesting bottles
- Price: free, with a Premium tier
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
2. Delectable
Built around what sommeliers, winemakers and critics are drinking rather than what the crowd scores. It is now run by the Vinous group, who also publish a buying app called Banquet.
- Best for: drinkers who want professional tasting notes rather than star averages
- Ratings: 4.6 from around 1,100 ratings on the UK App Store, 3.9 from around 6,000 reviews on Google Play
- What reviewers say: the label recognition is very good and the design is clean. The gap between the two store scores is worth noting, and Android reviewers in particular complain that prices often come back as sold out or fail to load
- Worth knowing: the iPhone version has not had an update since 2021, which for an app this well known is a fair warning sign
- Price: free, with a Premium subscription
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
3. Sommo
A newer arrival that puts learning first. It scans labels like the others, but the point of it is teaching you what you are drinking, with tasting journals and WSET study material built in.
- Best for: people who want to understand wine, not just log it
- Ratings: 4.7 on the UK App Store, but from only 13 ratings, so take that with caution
- What reviewers say: the small number of reviewers are enthusiastic about how much they have learned from it, and one nice line stands out: drinking less and enjoying it more
- Worth knowing: it is new, it is small, and it is the work of one developer. Updated constantly, which is a good sign, but it has nothing like the number of users behind it that the big apps have
- Price: free, with a Premium tier
- Runs on: iPhone only
Finding and buying a specific bottle
4. Wine-Searcher
Not a social app, a price comparison engine. If you know the bottle you want and you need to know who has it and what they are charging, this is the one.
- Best for: tracking down a specific wine and comparing prices across merchants
- Ratings: 4.7 from around 2,900 ratings on the UK App Store, 4.6 from around 7,400 reviews on Google Play, with over a million downloads
- What reviewers say: the database and the merchant coverage are what people praise, and the interface is clear. The main gripe is that you now have to create an account and hand over an email address before it will do anything
- Worth knowing: there is a Pro tier that adds historical pricing, vintage charts and price alerts. Only worth it if you are buying to collect or invest
- Price: free, with a paid Pro tier
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
Keeping track of a collection
5. CellarTracker
The long-standing choice for anyone with more than a couple of dozen bottles they do not want to lose track of. Decades of user tasting notes sit behind it.
- Best for: collections, drinking windows and depth of tasting notes
- Ratings: 4.9 from around 585 ratings on the UK App Store, 4.8 from around 2,900 reviews on Google Play
- What reviewers say: the rebuilt app has fixed the old complaint about a dated interface, and people are relieved about it. The database coverage gets praised repeatedly, including for small collections where you might expect gaps
- Price: free to start, with paid tiers that scale with the size of your cellar
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
6. Oeni
A French cellar app that treats your collection a bit like a portfolio, tracking what it is worth as well as where it is.
- Best for: managing a modest cellar without the learning curve, especially on Android
- Ratings: 4.7 from around 10,300 reviews on Google Play with over 500,000 downloads, and 4.5 from around 154 ratings on the UK App Store. It is the strongest of the cellar apps on Android by some distance
- What reviewers say: easy to use and the scanning makes adding bottles painless. Critics say the built-in database is limited and the ageing advice is a bit one size fits all
- Price: free, with an annual subscription for the full version
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
7. InVintory
The best looking of the cellar apps, with a 3D view of your racks so you can find a bottle rather than hunt for it, plus an AI assistant for pairings.
- Best for: iPhone owners with a proper cellar or a wine fridge
- Ratings: 4.7 from around 135 ratings on the UK App Store
- What reviewers say: people rate the design and are unusually complimentary about the support team, who clearly answer
- Worth knowing: the Android version is in open beta, and InVintory themselves say it is still catching up with the iPhone app, with some features missing. Check your own store before you commit
- Price: free tier, with paid plans above it
- Runs on: iPhone, Android in open beta
8. Enolisa
The newest name here. It builds recommendations around your own tasting history rather than crowd averages, and it makes a point of not being a shop or a social network.
- Best for: people who want a private cellar and tasting journal with recommendations built around their palate
- Ratings: 4.6 on Google Play, but from only 17 reviews and around 1,000 installs
- What reviewers say: there is barely enough feedback to draw a conclusion. One reviewer reported entries failing to save, and the developer replied and asked for details, which at least tells you someone is there
- Worth knowing: genuinely new and updated regularly, but a much smaller database than the established apps
- Price: free, with a Premium tier
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
Professional scores and tasting notes
9. Vinous
The app for the critic archive built by Antonio Galloni and his team, with a few hundred thousand tasting notes and scores behind a subscription.
- Best for: readers who already follow the Vinous critics
- Ratings: 3.9 from around 39 ratings on the UK App Store, 3.3 from around 14 reviews on Google Play
- What reviewers say: the writing and the reviews are respected, the app around them less so. Complaints cluster on sign-in problems and a search that only looks at reviews and not articles
- Worth knowing: the content is excellent and the app is the weak link. Many people use the website instead
- Price: free to download, subscription for full access
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
10. Wine Spectator WineRatings+
Access to the Wine Spectator tasting database, their panel scores and their vintage charts.
- Best for: people who buy by the Wine Spectator score
- Ratings: 4.1 on the UK App Store, from only 8 ratings, which is remarkably thin for a name this well known
- What reviewers say: the vintage charts and the daily pick are the bits people like. The criticism is that a redesign added steps to everything, and that reviewer names went missing, so you cannot follow a palate you trust
- Worth knowing: there is no Android app. Wine Spectator tell Android users to bookmark the website instead
- Price: free to download, subscription for full access
- Runs on: iPhone only
For going out
11. Raisin
Not a scanner and not a cellar. Raisin maps the restaurants, bars and shops that pour natural wine, with a bar set at 30% of the list or better.
- Best for: finding somewhere to drink, at home or on holiday
- Ratings: 4.9 from around 390 ratings on the UK App Store, 4.9 from around 2,700 reviews on Google Play, with over 500,000 downloads. One of the highest rated wine apps of any kind
- What reviewers say: the curation is what people love, and the sense that a venue on the list has thought about everything else too. The consistent complaint is geography: it is very strong in Europe and thin elsewhere, and a few users report crashes
- Worth knowing: strong coverage in Portugal, which makes it genuinely useful if you are going
- Price: free
- Runs on: iPhone and Android
Two you will see recommended that we would not download
12. Hello Vino
Hello Vino still turns up on best-of lists as the beginner's choice, so it is worth saying plainly what has happened to it. The iPhone app was last updated in September 2017. The Android version was pulled from Google Play in 2020 and never came back.
It still holds 4.3 from around 215 ratings on the UK App Store, but reviewers point out it was built for the United States, and that it started charging for things that used to be free. An app that has not been touched in nine years is not where a beginner should start. Vivino does the same job and is maintained.
A note on Wine Enthusiast
Wine Enthusiast comes up on these lists too. Their 100-point scores live on their website, not in a reviews app. What you will find in the App Store under their name is a utility for controlling their wine cabinets, which is useful if you own one and no use at all if you are standing in a shop holding a bottle.
Which wine app is best for Portuguese wine?
This is the part we care most about, because almost every big wine app is built around French, Italian and Californian bottles, and Portugal gets thin coverage for no good reason.
There is no ranking for this, so here is the reasoning instead:
- Vivino is the safest bet of the mainstream apps. Its database is built by its users, and Portugal is a wine-drinking country with a lot of them, so Douro, Alentejo and Vinho Verde labels are usually already in there. That is also its weakness: a small producer nobody has scanned yet will not be found
- CellarTracker goes deepest on the notes, and Port and Douro reds are well covered because collectors have been logging them for twenty years
- Wine-Searcher is the one for finding Portuguese bottles for sale in the UK, because it indexes independents as well as the supermarkets, including Portugal Best Wines
- Raisin is the one to have on your phone in Lisbon or Porto
New to Portuguese wine? It helps to know which grapes to look for before you scan anything. Have a read of our guide to Portuguese grape varieties and our ultimate guide to Portuguese wine.
Do you really need a wine app?
Honestly, no. Wine has been enjoyed without any apps for a few thousand years. But a good one saves you from buying the same disappointing bottle twice, it shows you which producers you keep coming back to, and it gives you a way to look up a label before you commit twenty pounds to it. That is worth the few seconds it takes to scan.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best wine app? Vivino, for most people. It has the biggest database, the scanning works, and it is free. Add CellarTracker if you have a collection, and Wine-Searcher if you are hunting a specific bottle in the UK.
Is Vivino free in the UK? Yes, free to download and use. The Premium tier adds extras such as unlimited expert reviews and merchant shipping estimates.
Can a wine app scan Portuguese labels? The mainstream scanners handle the well known Portuguese regions reasonably well, because their databases are built by users and Portugal has plenty of them. Small producers are hit and miss, which is true of any scanning app anywhere.
Which wine app works offline? CellarTracker is the most useful offline, because your own cellar and notes stay accessible. Vivino, Delectable and Wine-Searcher need a connection to scan and fetch prices.
Is there a wine app for beginners? Vivino. Hello Vino used to be the usual answer, but it has not been updated since 2017 and is no longer on Google Play at all.
What is the best app for managing a wine cellar? CellarTracker for the deepest database and the best tasting notes. Oeni if you are on Android. InVintory if you are on iPhone and want the 3D cellar view.
Does Wine Enthusiast have a wine app? Not a ratings app. Their scores are on their website, and the app carrying their name controls their wine cabinets.
Is there a wine app with expert reviews rather than crowd ratings? Yes, Delectable, Vinous and Wine Spectator all give you professional notes. All three put the good material behind a subscription.
What is a good Portuguese wine to try first?
Start with a Douro red, a Vinho Verde or an Alentejo white. Portuguese sparkling wines are well worth trying too, made by the same traditional method as Champagne but usually at a much friendlier price.
If you are feeling adventurous, try a Curtimenta, a Pet Nat or an Orange wine. They will not disappoint.
Explore our Portuguese wine collection to see the range, or read our Portuguese white wine and Portuguese red wine guides.
