User Guide

Everything you need to know

Welcome to Sommelier Snap! This guide will help you get the most out of your personal AI wine expert. Whether you're scanning a wine list at a restaurant or building your taste profile at home, we've got you covered.

Scan Any Wine List

Point your camera at any restaurant wine list to get started

Get AI Recommendations

Your personal sommelier analyzes the list and picks the best wines for you

Track Your Journey

Build your wine history, rate discoveries, and watch your palate evolve

Learn & Explore

Deep dive into wines with detailed tasting notes and food pairings

Step-by-Step Guide

Getting Started

Download from the Beta Portal or TestFlight

Open the app — you'll see the Sommelier Snap splash screen

Confirm you meet the legal drinking age for your region — the app detects your country, and you can adjust it if needed

Choose to set up your taste profile or skip for now

Tip: Setting up your taste profile right away leads to much better wine recommendations from the start!

Setting Up Your Taste Profile

Select your preferred wine styles — choose from Bold Red, Light Red, Dry White, Sparkling, Rose, and more

Pick your favorite wine regions — Napa Valley, Bordeaux, Tuscany, and 6 more options

Set your budget — use the sliders for per-glass ($5–$50) and per-bottle ($20–$200) preferences, or toggle “Any Budget”

Fine-tune your palate — adjust sliders for Body (light to full), Sweetness (dry to sweet), and Adventure Level (classic to adventurous)

Optionally add up to 5 favorite wines by scanning their labels — this supercharges your recommendations

Note: You can always update your taste profile later from Settings.

Your Home Screen

After setup, the home screen is your hub. It shows a personalized greeting, your recent wines (if any), and the main action buttons:

Scan Wine List — your primary action
Try a Demo — test with a sample wine list (great for first-time users)
My Profile / Wine Journey — quick access to your preferences and history

Quick Rate card (new in 4.9) — If you recently tried a wine but forgot to rate it, a hero card appears at the top of the home screen showing that wine. Tap the stars to rate in one step — no re-scan needed. Miss a few more? Tap “+N more” to see the full list of unrated recent wines with inline ghosted stars. Not in the mood? Tap dismiss and the card hides until your next session.

Tip: Quick Rate is the fastest way to keep your taste profile accurate — ratings directly feed the AI's future recommendations.

Your Palate Portrait

On the home screen you'll find your Palate Portrait (new in 5.0.11) — a glowing arc gauge that shows how well Sommelier Snap has gotten to know your taste. It fills in and warms from wine-red to gold as you go, and it only ever climbs — it never drops for going quiet.

Three things fill it in:

Set up your taste profile — gets it moving right away
Add wines you love — scan up to 5 favorite labels
Rate what you drink — every rating nudges it up

As it climbs it moves through five warm bands — from Getting started through Getting to know you, Learning your palate, and Knows your taste, up to Dialed in. A friendly line beneath the gauge always points you to your next step.

Tip: Your favorites and ratings are saved to your account, so creating one is what lets your Palate Portrait climb past the early bands.

Private by design: your Palate Portrait is calculated entirely on your device from your own profile and wine journey — nothing extra is sent to our servers.

Scanning a Wine List

Tap “Scan Wine List” on the home screen

Choose “Take Photo” to use your camera, or “From Gallery” to select an existing image

For multi-page wine lists, tap “Add Another Page” — you can scan up to 5 pages

Tap “Find My Perfect Wines” for direct recommendations, or “Find Wines + Food Pairing” to add food matching

The AI analyzes your scan and extracts all the wines it finds

(Optional, new in 4.9) Add a restaurant name so you can revisit this wine list later from your “Wine List Journey” tab. Leave it blank if you'd rather not.

Tip: For best results, ensure good lighting and hold your phone steady. Avoid shadows across the text.

Note: Every scan is saved automatically to your Wine List Journey, whether you add a restaurant name or not — you can always find it later.

Reviewing Your Results

After scanning, you'll see a confirmation screen showing:

The number of wines detected with a confidence score
A preview of the first few wines found
Options to “Get My Recommendations” or “Edit Wine List” to make corrections

Note: If some wines weren't detected correctly, tap “Edit Wine List” to fix names or remove duplicates before getting recommendations.

AI Recommendations

Your personal sommelier presents recommendations in three tiers:

Top Pick — the wine that best matches your taste profile
Runner Up — a great alternative choice
Worth Exploring — something to expand your palate

Each recommendation includes tasting notes, why it was chosen for you, and optional food pairing suggestions. Tap “Deep Dive” on any wine for detailed information.

Wine Journey Dashboard

Your Wine Journey is organized into two tabs:

Wine Journey

Individual wines you've rated:

Stats at a glance — total wines explored, selections made, average rating
Favorites — your highest-rated wines in a scrollable carousel
Evolving Tastes — see how your ratings and preferences change over time
Full History — chronological list of all wines with ratings, notes, and (when you added one) the restaurant where you tried them

Wine List Journey

Every restaurant wine list you've scanned, saved automatically:

Tap any list to see the wines it contained — handy for revisiting a spot without re-scanning
Restaurant names show when you added them; undated blank rows render cleanly as just the date
Photo icon (new in 4.11) — tap the small photo icon on any saved list to see the original menu scan. From there you can:
- Use this wine list — jump straight to mood selection and recommendations with the saved wines
- Rescan — re-submit the photo to the improved OCR (useful if prices were missed the first time)
Swipe left on any list to delete it
Select mode — tap Select at the top, check multiple lists, and delete in bulk with one confirmation
Home button (new in 4.11) — a home icon in the top-left of the Wine Journey screen takes you back to the main screen without having to start a new scan.

Tip: Pull down on either tab to refresh. Lists are kept forever until you delete them — no automatic expiry. Saved scan images cap at the 50 most recent; older menu photos may be automatically cleared to keep storage reasonable.

Adding Wine Labels to Your Profile

From the dashboard, tap “Add Favorite Wines” to capture wine labels:

Take a photo of a wine label or choose from your gallery

The app uses premium ML-powered OCR to extract wine details

Review and confirm the detected wine name, winery, vintage, and varietal

The wine is added to your profile — add up to 5 to complete your taste profile

Note: Label scanning works best with clear, well-lit photos of the front label.

Your Account

Sommelier Snap works right away — you can scan wine lists and get recommendations without an account. You're only asked to sign up the first time you tap Save on a wine or a wine list. Every account screen always has a visible way to continue without one — you're never locked out of the app.

Sign up with email and password when you're prompted at a save (or anytime via Settings → Create account) — it takes a few seconds.

Nothing is lost — any wines or lists you saved before signing up carry over to your new account automatically.

Already have an account? Settings → Sign in gets you back into it — for example after “Reset app & start over” or a reinstall. If you've forgotten your password, tap Forgot password? on the sign-in screen and we'll email you a reset link (check your spam folder — it likes to hide there).

Once signed in, Settings shows Signed in as your email, with options to Change Password (sends a reset email) and Sign Out.

Starting over vs. deleting: Settings → Reset app & start over clears everything on this device for a clean slate but keeps your account — sign back in anytime. Settings → Delete My Account is the permanent one: your account, email, and on-device data are removed immediately, with no recovery period. (The Delete option appears once you're signed in.)

What's stored where: your ratings, taste profile, and Wine Journey stay on your device. Only your account identity, email, and the legal-age confirmation timestamp are kept on our servers. See the Privacy Policy § 14.

Settings & Preferences

Access Settings from the gear icon on the dashboard:

Profile — edit your taste preferences
Account — Create account / Sign in when you're browsing anonymously; once signed in, shows your email with Change Password and Sign Out (see “Your Account” above)
Reset app & start over — clears this device for a clean slate, keeps your account so you can sign back in
Delete My Account — permanently removes your account and data, no recovery (shown once signed in)
Display Name — personalize your greeting
Push Notifications — toggle recommendation alerts
Sample Wine Lists — show or hide demo wine lists
User Guide — you're reading it!
Legal — Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Allergen Information

Tips for Best Results

Build your profile first — the more the app knows about your tastes, the better the recommendations

Scan in good lighting — avoid dim restaurants if possible, or use your phone's flash

Rate your wines — your ratings help the AI learn your preferences over time

Try the demo first — if you're new, use the sample wine list to see how recommendations work

Multi-page scanning — for long wine lists, scan each page separately for best accuracy

Be adventurous — use the “Worth Exploring” recommendation to discover new favorites

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the AI choose wines for me?

Sommelier Snap uses advanced AI to analyze your taste profile, budget, and the wines available on the list. It considers your preferred styles, regions, body, sweetness, and adventure preferences to find your perfect match.

Can I use the app without setting up a profile?

Yes! You can skip profile setup and jump straight to scanning wine lists. However, recommendations will be more generic without a taste profile to personalize them.

Do I need an account?

No — scanning and recommendations work without one. You're only asked to create an account (email and password) the first time you save a wine or wine list, and anything you saved beforehand carries over. Already have an account? Settings → Sign in (with a Forgot password? link if you need it — the reset email sometimes lands in spam). You can delete your account anytime from Settings once signed in.

How do I improve my recommendations?

Rate wines after trying them, add favorite wines to your profile by scanning their labels, and keep your taste profile updated. The more data the AI has, the better it gets at matching your preferences.

Is my data private?

Your ratings, taste profile, and Wine Journey stay on your device. When you scan a restaurant wine list, a copy of that photo is saved on your device so you can revisit it in your Wine List Journey (capped at the 50 most recent — delete any anytime); the photos are not kept on our servers. The only things stored on our servers are your account identity, email, and the timestamp of your legal-age confirmation. See our Privacy Policy for full details.