Wine Cellar Database vs Pocket Wine Pairing
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
Pocket Wine Pairing
Easily discover perfect food and wine pairings with a comprehensive index of meal types and wine styles. Organize your personal wine collection with photos and ratings, and gain expert insights into grape varieties and wine regions.
- Food and wine pairing index
- Wine style and grape variety insights
- Personal wine cellar with photos
- Do's & Don'ts pairing guide
- Quick guide to food types
- Wine ratings and notes
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Featured as one of the “Best New Apps” on the App Store! Food and wine pairing has never been so clear, accessible and easy to understand. The app gives you a detailed index of hundreds of meal types, showing you the best matches for different wine styles, grape varieties and blends. A “Do’s & Don’ts” section, along with a “Quick Guide To Food Types” provides valuable and easy to follow information enabling you to discover even more unique food and wine pairings for yourself. Add your wines to the unique “My Wines” cellar function, along with your views and ratings. The app also allows you to add as many photos as you like to each wine entry, so you can include a photo of the meal you paired the wine with, a photo of the restaurant menu or a copy of a recipe. Explore the Styles section and gain valuable insights into wine styles and why they are so important in enabling you to approach wines with confidence, like a professional. Discover the grape varieties that belong to each style, as well as their key attributes, flavor profile, regions and food pairing advice. Here’s what some users of our full Pocket Wine app had to say: “This app is sensational! I discovered my love for wine. Wonderful on pairing with foods and discovering which wines suit your palate.” “From a beer only drinker to a full on wine enthusiast and all because of this wonderful little app! I definitely recommend giving it a try.” “A must for any wine enthusiast. This app is worth every dollar, and even more if you’re learning or want to discover new wines.” “This app is the deal … an exploration tool … what really matters.” “Best of the best. Hands down worth every penny, great for all levels of learning.” “Thanks to this app I now know what I’m looking at and looking for when I go to a wine store.” “The best wine app out there, hands down.” “Great app. I’m a winemaker in VA and recommend this for visitors in the tasting room. Definitely recommend it, worth the price for the education and food pairing suggestions.” “Absolutely fantastic wine reference tool. Beautiful interface, easy to use and unbelievably informative.” “Finally, an app that has made wine accessible to me – brilliant!” Enjoy and happy food and wine pairing. EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Pocket Wine Pairing at 4.6 against Wine Cellar Database's 3.8. Pocket Wine Pairing also leads on ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (82% vs 58%). Wine Cellar Database's advantage is update cadence (every 6 days vs every 7 months). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Wine Cellar Database sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and Pocket Wine Pairing sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Pocket Wine Pairing holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pocket Wine Pairing has 359 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 58% of Wine Cellar Database's written reviews are positive against 82% of Pocket Wine Pairing's.
Wine Cellar Database ships an update every 6 days, Pocket Wine Pairing every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Wine Cellar Database | Pocket Wine Pairing |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (5 ratings) | 4.6 (359 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 58.0% of reviews | 82.2% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 359 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 7 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #198 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 43 MB | 31 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Adysseus | Time Marketing Limited |
Customer experience
Wine Cellar Database
Pocket Wine Pairing
User reviews
Wine Cellar Database
From 5 App Store ratingsWhat 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
Pocket Wine Pairing
From 359 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🍷 Comprehensive wine varietal database
- 👍 Excellent food and wine pairing suggestions
- 🚀 Fast and convenient to use
- 📚 Educational content about wine characteristics
- 🔄 Bidirectional search (wine by food or food by wine)
Room to improve
- 🔐 Aggressive paywall and premium subscription model
- 😤 Frequent upgrade prompts interrupting user experience
- 📉 Limited content in free version
- 🌍 Limited coverage of Canadian wine regions
- 🍰 Insufficient dessert wine pairing information
Bugs and requests
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
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- 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
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- 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
Pocket Wine Pairing
Reported bugs
2 issues- In-app purchase not prompting correctly on some devices
- Unresponsive customer support for purchase issues
Requested features
9 requests- Expanded dessert wine pairing information and serving guidance
- More frequent updates to food pairing database
- Enhanced coverage of Canadian wine regions (Okanagan Valley, Niagara Peninsula)
- Customizable wine and pairing information
- Integration with other wine apps (Vivino)
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- Organization by wine region/terroir in addition to varietal
- Integration with wine rating tables (DeLong periodic wine table)
- More comprehensive international wine coverage
- Ability to add custom notes and preferences
In-app purchases
Wine Cellar Database
- 10 More Spaces$0.99
- 40 More Spaces$0.99
- 20 More Spaces$1.99
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- 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
Pocket Wine Pairing
- Monthly Subscription$0.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription7 Days trial$5.991 Year
- Lifetime Subscription$19.99
Questions
Is Wine Cellar Database free?
Is Pocket Wine Pairing free?
Which has better reviews, Wine Cellar Database or Pocket Wine Pairing?
Do Wine Cellar Database or Pocket Wine Pairing have ads?
Which is updated more often, Wine Cellar Database or Pocket Wine Pairing?
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