Cheers! WineAlign helps pick the right bottle

Ontario wine drinkers might be overwhelmed with options after walking into their local LCBO store, as there are many hundreds of bottles available, usually divided by country and type of grape. If you don’t know where to start, you’re not alone, but a new service called WineAlign might be able to help.

WineAlign is a new online and mobile service designed to help wine shoppers make good buying decisions before they head to the LCBO – or even while at the store. Whether you’re accessing the service with a PC or smartphone (such as BlackBerry or iPhone) you can access reviews from multiple Canadian wine critics and search for top-rated wines in stock that fit their budget and preference (including region, wine type and food that goes with it).

WineAlign was conceived and created by Toronto-based entrepreneur Bryan McCaw, who bought an expensive bottle of Shiraz to celebrate a special occasion, but proved to be a big disappointment. And so WineAlign was designed to help one answer the question many of face each time we enter the LCBO: “What wine should I buy?”

Nearly 3,000 wine reviews are available on the service, and growing, plus users can write their own reviews, recommend wine to friends and take part in wine-related discussions.

The basic WineAlign service is free, but many of the features are disabled, such as access to wine critic reviews and the ability to access the mobile site (m.winealign.com) on a smartphone. The WineAlign Premium Service gives you two months for free and then costs $40 a year, $70 for two-years or $100 for three years.

While this service is only available to Ontarians at this time, WineAlign says it will soon expand to other provinces.