My old wine strategy
I enjoy wine. I just do not know that much about it.
Faced with a long restaurant list, I often fell back on one rule: skip the cheapest bottle and order the second-cheapest. Then hope it works with the food.
I did not want a wine course. I wanted a better answer in that exact moment: which bottle on this list suits my meal and what I want to spend?
The app I pictured
Take a photo of the wine list. Add the dish and an approximate budget. Get one recommendation and a short reason, not a ranking of twenty options.
That became the first version of Glasspair.
The app reads the available bottles, interprets grape varieties and flavour profiles, and compares them with the dish. Reviews and the price within that particular restaurant help with the ranking. The aim is one bottle I can order with reasonable confidence.
Harder than the initial idea
Wine lists are made for diners, not cameras. Glare, small type and unusual layouts mean that not every list scans cleanly.
There is also no objective «best» bottle. Glasspair can compare the options and explain a recommendation. It cannot know whether I will enjoy the wine. That is why it gives reasons rather than pretending there is one correct answer.
Prices and ranges change too. That matters even more for the two features I added later.
From the restaurant to home
The same question came up when cooking. Glasspair can now search the ranges at Coop, Migros, Denner, Aldi and Lidl and suggest a bottle in three price bands.
I can also add the wine I already have at home. In that case, Glasspair looks there first. Quite often, the best bottle to recommend is the one I do not need to buy.
What Glasspair can do today
- scan a wine list and compare the bottles on it
- include the meal and budget in the recommendation
- search ranges at major Swiss supermarkets
- choose a suitable bottle from a personal collection
- work without an account, subscription or advertising
Glasspair is currently available only on iOS. Poor photos and fast-changing prices and ranges remain its main practical limitations.
Built with
- Expo
- React Native
- TypeScript
- Supabase
- Supabase Edge Functions
