Eric Ferris was weary of the late night phone calls from his tipsy friends and decided to do something about it.
The sommelier and co-owner of Abbotsford's Restaurant 62 was being bombarded by people seeking wine recommendations for meals while out to dinner or at parties – so he came up with an iPhone app to do the work for him.
Teaming up with Vancouver's Gloo Studios and others at his restaurant, Ferris worked to create the Wine Guru, a free application software or "app", designed to help people select the best wine for food using their cell phone.
"I came up with the idea because my buddies kept calling me at inopportune times for wine and food advice," said Ferris. "It's basically a pocket sommelier."
The official launch of the Wine Guru isn't until July 21, but the gadget is already available on the iTunes App Store and getting lots of attention.
"It's rolling well," said Ferris.
"We've already soft launched it and are getting thousands of downloads."
Ferris, an award-winning sommelier who's been in the fine dining industry since the 90s, selected data for the Wine Guru to come up with wine suggestions for food selections based on region, ingredients, and budget.
The app, which has a constantly expanding database featuring 2000 plus wines, lets users dictate the region or colour of their choice, or simply chooses for them.
Wine Guru can also generate a choice based not only on meal ingredients, but also on how food is cooked.
The application provides three wine pairings for each meal that are categorized as Classic, New World, and Off The Wall.
Information about the vintages suggested is provided, and people can rate them and add them to their list of favourites.
If the selection is not available, Wine Guru will provide other similar suggestions.
Wine Guru took about a year to develop and was test-driven by family, friends and customers.
"They were the original guinea pigs, and they really enjoyed it," said Ferris, adding the entire undertaking was a means to share his love of wine.
He doesn't expect he or Restaurant 62 will benefit directly from the app, as users can download it from anywhere in the world.
"There are tertiary benefits I suppose, but we're not going to get to much in return when someone downloads it in Ontario," Ferris said.
"It's more a passion continued, sharing what we know about food and wine."
For more information or a video tutorial on the Wine Guru app visit www.the-wine-guru.com/ or download it from Apple iTunes.
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