WinoBot is a free app download from iphone that helps you pick out the best wine for you from the restaurant’s wine list. WinoBot does three things for the consumer: 
1. Recommends wine from the restaurant that she is at according to her preferences. 
2. Allows the user to see what her friends liked or disliked during previous visits at the restaurant 
3. Keeps track of all the wines she has rated for future reference and follow-on purchases from retail partners. For the consumer WinoBot is their personal sommelier. For restaurants it is their mobile app. For wineries it is a direct channel to reach the consumers. IntoWine recently caught up with Min Zhang from WinoBot to get his take on this inventive wine app that has taken the California restaurant world by storm.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a Baltimore Ravens themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Ravens fan? Proud to Wear Purple It's safe to say that most football fans in Baltimore will never forgive football owner Robert Irsay for moving his Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis under cover of darkness in 1984, leaving Charm City without a NFL team. A city obsessed with football had to wait until 1996, when Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell brought his team to Baltimore, to break out the tailgating gear and cheer at a local professional football game. The Baltimore Ravens, named in honor of native son Edgar Allan Poe, were instantly embraced by their new fans, who happily traded Colts blue for Ravens purple.

Master Sommelier George Miliotes grew up around food. His family owned a restaurant in Orlando and it was while on a trip to Germany with his father as a teenager he first sample wines that changed his life. Miliotes began creating award-winning wine lists in the late 1980s and eventually created one, the first of its kind, for The California Grill at Disney World. He is currently Director of Beverage and Hospitality for the Capital Grille, a Darden restaurant concept, where he oversees the wine list for all 40 locations of the national steak house chain, with wine lists ranging from 300 to 1,000 selections. Miliotes is also the food and beverage director for the nationally recognized, Seasons 52 , with locations in Florida and Georgia. With so many wines relatively high in alcohol these days, how difficult is it for a restaurants’ wine-by-the-glass program to pair with delicate foods? I do not see this as an issue. There are appropriate wines for appropriate foods and a well set up wine-by-the-glass program makes sure these bases are covered. The reason that varietals like Riesling are on fire is that they are lower alcohol and can pair well with lighter foods. While red wines may be lagging a little behind in the balanced alcohol arena, I think there is an active movement for more balanced wines even with reds.

Jon Bonné is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine editor, responsible for the paper’s wine and spirits coverage and the annual Top 100 Wines list. Before coming to The Chronicle, Bonné was lifestyle editor and wine columnist for MSNBC.com and lived in New York. His work has earned him two James Beard awards and multiple awards from the Association of Food Journalists. Previously Bonné was wine columnist for Seattle Magazine and has written about wine for Food & Wine, Decanter, Saveur, and the Art of Eating. He has also reported for The New York Times, Court TV, and National Public Radio, and is working on a book about California wine. What wine varieties would you like to see the public embrace more fully? So many Italian white varieties should be better known. Vermentino could be a star in California. Ribolla Gialla. Friulano. Grechetto. Timorasso. Ditto Portuguese varieties, but we’re much earlier on the curve. What else? Grenache. It’s everything that people claim to want in red wine, and it doesn’t have Syrah’s years of baggage. For that matter, let’s add Grenache Blanc to the list. It’s remarkably user-friendly.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a Pittsburgh Steelers themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Steelers fan? Steeler Nation Wherever you go in the U. S., you will find fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. In fact, the team is so popular that its fans are called the "Steeler Nation." You can join Steelers fan clubs in nearly every major U. S. city, including Atlanta, Kansas City and Tampa. Part of the reason for all of this enthusiasm is the team's long history; founded in 1933 as the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Steelers are the fifth-oldest National Football League team. The main reason, however, for the Steelers' popularity with fans is the team's outstanding record. No other team has won as many Super Bowls – six – as the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers' all-time roster includes some of the greatest names in professional football history: Ernie Stautner, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Greene, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert, and, of course, current quarterback "Big Ben" Ben Roethlisberger.

With the founding of Duckhorn Vineyards in 1976, Dan and Margaret Duckhorn played a pioneering role in establishing Merlot as one of North America's great premium wine grapes. Duckhorn Vineyards produces several single-vineyard Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons, as well as a highly regarded Sauvignon Blanc . Their work as wine industry leaders has been recognized on many fronts including the New York Times which dubbed Dan as “Mr. Merlot.” The Duckhorns took that same Merlot vision and applied it to Pinot Noir in Mendocino’s Anderson Valley with Goldeneye. In July, 2007, GI Partners , a private equity firm, purchased a controlling interest in Duckhorn Wine Company.

Mentored by his father, a technical director at Château Lafite, Bernard Portet grew up tasting each wine vintage. Born in Cognac, his family has owned vineyard property in France since the late 1600s. A firm believer that making wine is all about a specific place, Portet’s journey led him to the United States, Australia, Morocco, South Africa and South America. Due to the similarities of several of his favorite wine regions in France, it was California’s Napa Valley that inspired him. With a clear vision of the potential of the Napa Valley, in 1971 he co-founded Clos du Val. He pioneered several Napa Valley regions and developed a keen focus upon the Stags Leap region. Portet remained at Clos du Val for more than 35 years. His latest wine label, Heritance launched in 2011.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a New England Patriots themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Patriots fan? Ask any pro football fan about the decade's top NFL franchises; chances are high that the New Enland Patriots will be on that fan's short list of the league's best teams. Since 2001, the Patriots have won three Super Bowl titles and made the playoffs eight times; coach Bill Belichick has been named NFL Coach of the Year three times. The Patriots' strong record of success under Belichick's leadership attracts the admiration of football fans across the country. The New England Patriots played their first season in 1960, in the now-defunct American Football League. At that time, the team was known as the Boston Patriots; the team logo featured "Patriot Pat," a football-playing Minuteman. In 1970, the Patriots joined the National Football League and broke ground on their new stadium, Foxboro Stadium, located in Foxborough (also spelled "Foxboro"), Massachusetts. The next year, playing in their new stadium, the team became the New England Patriots. In 1976, the team qualified for the NFL playoffs for the first time.

Beckmen Vineyards, founded in 1994 by the father and son team of Tom and Steve Beckmen. With the planting of their Purisima Mountain Vineyard, located in Santa Ynez, they were one of the first to create a fully sustainable vineyard site, which many wineries purchase fruit from. In addition to growing grapes, Beckmen is known for a focus on Rhone varieties, and a holistic approach to winemaking. Steve individually ferments as many as 100 small lots of fruit, often employing techniques such as native yeast fermentation or whole cluster pressing to highlight the personality of a given clone or block. You and your father (originally from the Chicago area) set up your winery in Santa Barbara. Of all the places you could have chosen to immerse yourself in the wine business, why here? Though my father is originally from Chicago, I grew up in Southern California. When we were thinking about founding a winery, there were several reasons we were drawn to Santa Barbara County. The first reason was very personal—we have always really loved this area and have been drawn to it. From a winemaking standpoint, I think we both liked the fact that the story of Santa Barbara wine had yet to be written in the early-to-mid 1990s. There was, and I think still is, a pioneering spirit, as people were trying new things and exploring new varietals to see what works best here. This greatly appealed to us.

This time of year, many publications, writers and bloggers come out with their top ten wine lists for the year. Recently, during a discussion of one of these lists, I was asked what the ten greatest wines were. Before answering such a question, I needed to settle on my criteria for judging. Was it the ten greatest in the past year? Was it the ten greatest bottles which would include vintage? What does greatest mean? After some thought, here is what I came up with. First, I need to define great. I don’t mean interesting, contemplative, unique. I mean superlative. I am talking about the kind of wine that makes everything stop as you taste it because it’s just so damn brilliant. Also, I am interested in wines that are produced from year to year and are always (or almost always) great wines. I will not consider one hit wonders. I don’t need a long track record, but for example, the 1990 Château Beauséjour-Duffau was an incredible wine. It is, however, so far above the usual quality of this wine that it would not be considered.