Comparison

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews vs Wine Cellar Database

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews

Instantly access expert wine reviews and ratings by scanning wine labels or barcodes. Discover food pairings, track your cellar, and get personalized recommendations from a world-renowned wine expert.

Highlights
  • Label and barcode scanner
  • Expert wine reviews
  • 270,000+ wine ratings
  • Food pairing suggestions
  • Personal cellar tracker
  • Customizable shopping lists
  • Wine alerts for new vintages
Features
Read full description

Named Top Wine App by New York Times, Washington Post, iPhone Life Magazine Want to buy a great wine recommended by the World's Best Wine Writer? Get the only Wine App with built-in label and barcode scanners to instantly access expert wine reviews. Natalie MacLean, World Food Media Awards winner, is your best friend when you’re shopping for wine, dining at restaurants or entertaining with friends. Like a sommelier in your pocket, she's there with you to help choose the right wine at the right price every time. Just point your camera at the front label or back barcode of any wine to get: • Easy access professional, jargon-free wine reviews you can trust • Instant search and sorting of 270,000 expert wine ratings • Delicious new food pairings for every style of wine • Quick recall of your favorite wines in My Cellar, the app's cellar tracker software • Fast way to add photos, labels and your own notes to My Cellar • Proven tips for buying the best wines in: Sherry-Lehmann, Morrell, Binny’s, Sam’s Wine, Wally’s Wine & Spirits, Costco and thousands of other liquor stores Bonus Features: • Custom Shopping Lists you can sort by region, style, price • Helpful alerts when the wines you like are back in stores with a new vintage • Exclusive access Natalie’s top wines for special occasions, gift-giving and dinner parties • Effortless ways to share your favorite wines on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram • Fun approach to discover what your friends are drinking • Hundreds of entertaining wine videos and insider interviews with winemakers For Natalie's free wine tips: 

 NatalieMacLean.com

 Twitter.com/NatalieMacLean 
Facebook.com/NatDecants 
 Instagram.com/NatalieMacLeanWine
 Note from Nat …

 Howdy Wine Lovers,

 I'm not able to address issues posted here, so please e-mail me if you have a feature to suggest or there's a bug to fix: natdecants@nataliemaclean.com

. 

The new label scanner will improve with your help in adding new wines and labels. Let's make this app even better together! This is a labor of love for me as a journalist: it has cost me personally more than $100,000 to create and keep updating this app ... so please be kind and patient ;) Cheers, 
 Natalie 
P.S. Please upgrade your smartphone to Apple's most recent operating system (iOS) to optimize app performance. It's free to do this: apple.com/ios

 Natalie MacLean is an independent journalist and author of the bestselling books "Red, White and Drunk All Over" and "Unquenchable" both published by Random House. She has won six International Association of Culinary Professional (IACP) awards and four James Beard Journalism Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. 

 Video tips to get the most from the app: 

 nataliemaclean.com/mobileapp

About

Wine Cellar Database

Manage your wine collection with flexible inventory tracking. Search online databases for wine details, add custom categories, and track bottle valuations. Supports multiple photos and international currencies.

Highlights
  • Online wine search and recommendations
  • Customizable wine categories and sorting
  • Add unlimited photos per wine
  • Multi-device transfer via Dropbox
  • Import/export from spreadsheets
  • Real-time cellar valuation statistics
Features
Read full description

Full iPhone Duo Support Every cellar is kept differently. This one lets you keep yours your way. Wine Cellar Database is an inventory app for a real collection: what you own, how many bottles, where it is stored, what you paid, what you thought of it. You decide which of those it asks about. Add a column, rename one, hide one, put them in the order you want, and every wine in the cellar picks up the change. Version 5 is a rebuild. Everything below is new or rewritten. FIND A WINE WITHOUT TYPING IT OUT A catalog of 210,000 wines from 38,000 producers ships inside the app. Search it, tap a wine, and the producer, region, sub-region, vineyard, designation and color are filled in for you. It makes no network request. It works on a plane, and in a cellar with no signal. YOUR COLUMNS, NOT OURS • Add columns of your own: text, large text, number, yes/no, year or date • Rename and reorder the ones that came with the app, and hide the ones you never use • Choose which columns appear under a wine's name in the list • Your own spreadsheet headings are remembered, so an export comes back the way you sent it ONE CELLAR ON TWO DEVICES (BETA) Turn on iCloud Sync and your iPhone and iPad keep the same cellar: wines, photographs, columns and saved filters. It goes to the private database of your own iCloud account, not to a server of ours, because there isn't one. It stays off until you turn it on, and it will not turn on until you have taken a full backup. A BACKUP YOU CAN HOLD One file holds the whole cellar: every wine, every column, every photograph. Save it to Files or iCloud Drive, put it on a Mac, or mail it to yourself. Open one later and look at the wines inside it before you restore anything. Spreadsheets too. Import a CSV from Cellar Tracker or from a spreadsheet you keep yourself, and export the cellar back out under your own headings. FIND THE BOTTLE • Search as you type • Filters you build and save, on your columns, by text, number or date • Favourites and Wishlist, each its own list • Sort by name or vintage, in either direction AND • As many photographs per wine as you like: the label, the back label, the receipt • Prices in your own currency, converted at current rates • A dark appearance, and type that scales with the rest of your phone • On iPad, your cellar and the wine side by side — and it shares the screen, in Split View or Slide Over WHAT IT COSTS Ten spaces are free. A space is one unique wine, however many bottles of it you have: a 2007 and a 2008 of the same wine are two spaces, and twenty-eight bottles of the 2008 are still one. More spaces are a one-time purchase, and any purchase also removes the ad at the bottom of the list. No account. No subscription. No sign-in. Your cellar lives on your device and goes nowhere you do not send it.

Screenshots

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews4 screens
Wine Cellar Database4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Wine Cellar Database at 3.8 against Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews's 1.0. Wine Cellar Database also leads on update cadence (every 6 days vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (5 vs 1). Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and ads (none vs shown). On price and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Wine Cellar Database sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Wine Cellar Database holds the better App Store score, 3.8 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Wine Cellar Database has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 68% of Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews's written reviews are positive against 58% of Wine Cellar Database's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews ships an update every 4 months, Wine Cellar Database every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 2 level
Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews versus Wine Cellar Database: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterWine Scanner & Expert ReviewsWine Cellar Database
PriceFreeFree
Rating1.0 (1 ratings)3.8 (5 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.0% of reviews — better57.7% of reviews
Number of ratings15 — better
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 6 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS9.3 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size76 MB43 MB
Age rating17++17
DeveloperNatalie McLeanAdysseus

Customer experience

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews

All ratings1 ratings
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%
Written reviews125 reviews
Positive68.0%
Neutral2.4%
Negative29.6%

Wine Cellar Database

All ratings5 ratings
Positive60.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative20.0%
Written reviews142 reviews
Positive57.7%
Neutral10.6%
Negative31.7%

User reviews

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews

From 1 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Expert wine reviews from Natalie MacLean
  • 🔍 Label scanner and barcode scanning functionality
  • 📍 Store inventory integration with LCBO and SAQ
  • 🍷 Food and wine pairing suggestions
  • 💾 Wine cellar tracking feature

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Unreliable barcode and label scanning
  • 🔍 Incomplete wine database with missing common bottles
  • 💰 Misleading free-to-play model with required subscription
  • 🍁 Ontario-centric bias in wine selection
  • 🐛 Frequent app crashes and freezing

Wine Cellar Database

From 5 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive interface
  • 📱 Syncs across multiple devices (iPhone, iPad)
  • 🔍 Customizable fields and categories
  • 💾 CSV import/export functionality
  • 🌐 Online wine database lookup

Room to improve

  • 🚫 App no longer receives updates or support
  • 💥 Crashes on newer iOS versions (14+)
  • 🔗 Online search/database lookup broken
  • 📵 Non-responsive developer/support team
  • 🔄 Syncing issues between devices

Bugs and requests

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews

Reported bugs

10 issues
  • Label scanner fails to recognize wines consistently
  • Barcode scanning doesn't work reliably
  • App crashes when updating wines in cellar
  • Reviews section fails to load
  • App freezes and requires restart
Show 5 more
  • Cannot navigate back without returning to main menu
  • Password acceptance issues
  • Incorrect wine identification (wrong varietal or bottle size)
  • Unsubscribe requests not honored
  • Camera scan only works for first scan then fails

Requested features

10 requests
  • Improved barcode and label scanning accuracy
  • Expanded wine database coverage
  • Better search functionality with advanced filters
  • User location settings for accurate pricing
  • Support for more wine regions and producers
Show 5 more
  • Better navigation within app sections
  • Dark mode option
  • Expanded coverage for US wines and wineries
  • More detailed and longer wine reviews
  • Improved app stability and performance

Wine Cellar Database

Reported bugs

12 issues
  • App crashes on iOS 14.2 and later
  • Online wine search no longer functions
  • Dropbox sync failures
  • Data corruption and loss
  • Restore function broken
Show 7 more
  • Purchased storage spaces not recognized
  • App won't open after iOS updates
  • Syncing between iPad and iPhone fails
  • Support website links to expired domain
  • App defaults to old file versions
  • Incorrect wine deletion when removing entries
  • Missing color and region fields in some versions

Requested features

15 requests
  • Barcode/label scanning functionality
  • OCR technology for automatic data entry
  • Automatic cloud syncing (not manual)
  • Web-based access to cellar database
  • Visual cellar layout/location mapping
Show 10 more
  • Expanded international wine database
  • Notifications for optimal drinking dates
  • Cellar value/worth calculation
  • Data export to web dashboard
  • API access for data extraction
  • Printing functionality
  • Expanded food pairing suggestions
  • Duplicate wine entry for different vintages
  • Copy/paste functionality for data entry
  • Tutorial for new users

In-app purchases

None

Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

Wine Cellar Database

One-time10
  • 10 More Spaces$0.99
  • 40 More Spaces$0.99
  • 20 More Spaces$1.99
Show 7 more
  • 100 More Spaces$1.99
  • 30 More Spaces$2.99
  • 50 More Spaces$3.99
  • 225 More Spaces$3.99
  • 500 More Spaces (Most Popular)$9.99
  • 1000 More Spaces$9.99
  • Infinite Spaces$24.99

Questions

Is Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews free?
Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Wine Cellar Database free?
Wine Cellar Database is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews or Wine Cellar Database?
Wine Cellar Database is rated higher. Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews averages 1.0 out of 5 from 1 ratings, while Wine Cellar Database averages 3.8 from 5 ratings.
Do Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews or Wine Cellar Database have ads?
Wine Cellar Database shows ads; Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews does not.
Which is updated more often, Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews or Wine Cellar Database?
Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews ships an update every 4 months, and Wine Cellar Database every 6 days. Most recently, Wine Scanner & Expert Reviews was updated on October 19, 2026 and Wine Cellar Database on October 28, 2026.

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