The Home Glass

Philip James, CEO and cofounder of the interactive wine database and social network Snooth, has been a busy guy lately. The ink was barely dry on press releases announcing Snooth’s new iPhone app when another was issued announcing the launch of Snooth’s sister Website, Lot18.com. Below are details on both offerings, along with information about a third new tech tool aimed at automating the wine appreciation experience. Blogging aside, I personally like keeping that experience as tech-free as possible, but… no judgment on the early adopters.

• The newish app Snooth Wine Pro lets you take a picture of a wine label with your phone and, once the wine has been identified in Snooth’s database, quickly find a bottle of it in a store near you. You can also create wishlists and maintain a virtual cellar, instantly read reviews, and add reviews of your own. Snooth Wine Pro is available for $4.99 in Apple’s App Store. A free, ad-supported version is also available.

• The just-launched Lot18.com is selling wines in a flash-sale-style format at savings of up to 60 percent. It’s a membership-by-invitation marketplace, but securing an invitation involves nothing more than clicking a Get Invite Code button on the site and filling in your name, e-mail, and zip code. Alder Yarrow offered a good list of these sites last summer on Vinography, and his post mentions some interesting views from Good Grape on the same topic.

• Argentina’s Argento Winery has released its 2009 Argento Malbec with a QR barcode that, when scanned with a smartphone equipped with a QR code reader, provides access to winery and winemaker information, tasting notes, food pairings, and videos. Other wineries jumping on the QR code bandwagon include Kendall-Jackson,  JUSTIN Winery of Paso Robles; Kind Vines of Arizona; and wineries in Portugal and Australia. Free QR code readers are easy to find online; here’s a good CNet review of a few.