We are pleased to announce the release of Drync Wine v2.1. Based on feedback from our Users, this release includes many of the most frequently requested features, as well as performance enhancements to the app and our back-end Search technology. Thank you for your input and patience.

Here are some noteworthy improvements you should see in v2.1:

• Search is now 2-5x faster
• Edit wine attributes in your Cellar
• Faster rendering of all pages
• Cellar filtering by any wine attribute or Note
• Easier entry and reading of Notes
• Choose a label image from your iPhoto Library
• Many bug fixes

But we’re not done! In fact, we’re just getting started. Look for a major upgrade in the next month or so that will include more reviews, Cellar backup and sharing, more fields to track your collection, …

Again, we greatly appreciate your support and feedback. Keep it coming!

And please consider reviewing us, or updating your review, in the app store here.

– Brad Rosen & the Drync Team

Follow our progress on Twitter here.
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Report feedback to feedback@drync.com

I co-founded Drync because I love wine, but have no time to invest in becoming a wine guru, aka oenophile. I’ve got a full time job and three active boys to contend with. While I’d love to spend my days going to wine tastings and reading The Wine Spectator, sadly, that will continue to be a  fantasy…at least until I ship them off to college.

So, I find myself using the Drync app all the time…to look “informed” when at a business meeting…to select the “right” bottle and impress friends at a dinner party…or just to discover new wines to try at home.

New in the v2.0 product is a Top Wines section. This is one of my favorites,  because I love browsing the most popular wines our users are drinking.

For instance, I just noticed that my favorite inexpensive, “go-to” wine is at the top of the list - Kim Crawford - a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. It’s nice to know others like it too as I bring it to almost every dinner party I go to! You can’t go wrong with Kim Crawford. I never much liked Sauvignon Blancs until I tried the New Zealand variety. And Kim Crawford has become my favorite.  And as I learned from a review I read on Drync, the 2008 Kim Crawford was selected to Wine Spectator’s top 100 list.  I always thought the 2007 was the one to buy. This is why I love Drync — now i know to buy the 2008! (And btw, you can buy it by the case at Costco).  I drink it year round. In the spring and summer it pairs well with just about anything I’m grilling. (i don’t cook…only grill) fruity and crisp and not too sweet. And I drink it all winter long to remind me of spring and summer. Us New Englanders do whatever we can to get through winter. And Kim Crawford helps makes winter just a little bit more palatable.

Speaking of winter, we’re heading up to ski country this weekend, and I am bringing the 2007 Luca Malbec. Another popular wine from our Top Wines section. It too is on Wine Spectator’s 2008 top 100 list. According to Eric Asimov from the NYT, Malbecs are a great value and very “drinkable.” Since that’s about as sophisticated as I get — I’m sold. It is supposed to pair well with hearty comfort foods like lamb, steak, and pork.  Since I don’t cook…I like to stop at the Harvest Market in Stowe, VT. They have a great lamb shank with fig sauce.  Sounds perfect for the Malbec, and just the type of meal we’ll want after a long day on the slopes.
I’ll let you know how it goes! And keep using Drync so I can discover more wines that you like!

Cheers!

Jodi, Co-Founder

February was quite a month. In typical fashion, I let our planned v2.0 release “balloon” from a manageable set of features to something quite a bit larger than that. Now pleasantly on the other side of the release, I can look back and admit that maybe we should have bitten off something smaller.

However, perhaps it was worth the extra effort and time. Today we were chosen as the top wine app in the app store by Macworld. That feels good and probably justifies the “stress” induced by feature creep. What I particularly like about this article is the author is exactly our target audience - not a wine expert per sae, but a wine lover and interested in remembering and learning more about the wines he tries. I also like his correct (imo) analysis of the Wine Enthusiast Guide app, which has a lot of information but loses some of the key mainstream use-cases.

Our v2.0 release really zero’d in on user feedback, which was incredibly clear. We received hundreds of requests for the following features:

• Cellar filtering
• Editable fields for wines stored in people’s Cellars
• More reviews
• Visibility into what other users are drinking

All that’s in there. The Cellar filtering took quite a bit of doing, and in the end we settled on a solution that, while perhaps not perfect for everyone, is quite elegant (we think). A simple “search” bar (a common iPhone paradigm) into which you type keywords that you would like to filter your Cellar on, such as Red, Chardonnay, or Steak.

What didn’t make it that users have requested? The key items, which will be released in the blink of an eye, include:

• MUCH faster search (we’ve completely re-vamped our Search back end)
• Cellar sorting (i.e. by rating, alphabetical, etc.)
• Cellar backup

There will be much more, but that’s the teaser.

Thanks for your support. Keep the feedback coming. I think you’ll find that we respond quickly to it!

-Brad, CEO