WineAlign.com

Here's an interesting new site for Ontario wine buyers. WineAlign.com can search across wines available at the LCBO (and your local store or stores) and links available wines with professional and user ratings and reviews.

I've only taken a cursory look at the site but I'm very impressed. You need to sign up and register to see reviews but the pros include Robert Parker/The Wine Advocate and several local reviewers. Until the community grows (substantially), the user reviews don't seem very helpful (the Arrowood I posted on early has a 90pt and 70pt rating for example - quite a range).

There's an iPhone interface as well which I haven't tried, but that would be super convenient while shopping.

UPDATE: There's a mobile version of the site but it is not optimized for the iPhone. It's disingenuous to claim iPhone support in the press release if you ask me as the mobile version is basically unusable (everything is rendered microscopically small).

Currently, subscription is free for a limited time (my subscription will expire in March).

As impressed as I am, I'm left with two questions.

1. Why isn't this the LCBO's online storefront? The design is clean and simple and provides the services that LCBO customers are looking for.

2. Will I be willing to pay for this service once the trial expires? At this point, I'd probably pass given that I think that this is the type of website that the LCBO should be funding with the excessive taxes applied to wine sales in the province.

Cheers!

Comments

[Toronto condos]

Perfect! Sometimes I would like to try something new, but I usually drink wine with friends or on some meetings and business dinners, so I don't want to risk it and usually choose the brand I know. This site can help a bit in searching some new bottles :)
Best wishes
Elli

[The Analyst]

The 70-point rating on the bottle you looked at is due to an oversight in the website design. What has most likely happened is that someone has added the wine to their cellar, but not chosen a score and therefore defaulted to the base score of 70. IMO the wesbite shouldn't pick up a score unless a user chooses to do so. This problem can also skew search results, which are based on score. Otherwise, a great site!