The household cellar and bar
Wine, spirits and cocktails, in one place
Barello is a home cellar and bar app that tells you what to open tonight, what to keep, and what you can mix from what you have. The wine and the spirits sit in one household inventory, and the cellar counts toward the bar: 18 of the cocktails it knows take a wine, so the prosecco in the fridge is already part of what you can mix.
Most drink apps make you pick a lane, the wine journal or the cocktail app, and whichever shelf you didn't pick stops existing. In Barello the gin sits beside the Shiraz, so tonight's answer can be either one.
Where the two shelves meet
Every recipe in Barello carries a rule for each ingredient, saying what on your shelf counts for it. When the ingredient is a wine, the app looks in the cellar rather than on the bar shelf. These are the drinks that take one:
| From the cellar | Cocktails | A bottle counts if it says |
|---|---|---|
| Sparkling | Bellini, Champagne Cocktail, French 75, Hugo, Kir Royale, Mimosa, Negroni Sbagliato, Pornstar Martini (a glass on the side), Spritz | sparkling, Champagne, Prosecco, brut, Cava or Crémant |
| White | Bicicletta, Kir, Spritzer, White Sangria | Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Vermentino, Albariño or Semillon |
| Red | Kalimotxo, Mulled Wine, New York Sour (floated on top), Sangria, Tinto de Verano | Shiraz, Syrah, Cabernet, Merlot, Malbec, Pinot Noir, Grenache, Tempranillo, Sangiovese or Nebbiolo |
The app looks for those words in the bottle's name, maker, grape and region. These are the rules it runs on, not a summary of them.
It works the other way too. Open the prosecco's page in the app and it lists the drinks that bottle goes into: the ones you can make tonight, and the ones you're one thing short of.
A journal remembers. A shelf decides.
Most apps that cover both are tasting journals. You log what you drank, rate it, and look back. Useful, and not the question at six o'clock on a Tuesday.
The question then is what's in the house and what it's good for. That's the job Barello does: it holds the bottles you own, not the ones you've had, and works from there.
It's shared with the house, too. One inventory the whole household can see, not a private log on one phone. I built it after moving house and finding wine I'd forgotten I owned; that story's here.
Three things it tells you
What to open tonight. Every wine carries a drinking window, and the window moves to match where you keep the bottle. Tonight's list is the bottles that are ready, not the ones you happen to remember.
What you can mix. Tick what's on the bar shelf and it lists what you can make now, what you're one bottle short of, and which bottle would open the most drinks. The cocktail finder does this on its own, free, with no sign-up.
What to keep. Tuesday wine or birthday wine. Bottles fall into bands you set yourself, so the good one waits for the night it was bought for.
It asks where the bottle lives
A wine in a kitchen cupboard that swings with the seasons is on a different clock to the same wine lying still somewhere cool and dark. So the window moves. You tell it where you live and where each bottle is kept, once, and the dates follow. The storage guide works out what each spot does to a bottle, city by city.
That's what makes the two shelves worth keeping together. The bottle that's ready and the drink you can make are the same question, asked of the same house.
What Barello doesn't do
There's no review community and no shop. If you want a crowd's ratings on a label you're holding in a bottle shop, a scanner app does that and this doesn't. The comparison with Vivino has the detail.
It doesn't total up what the cellar is worth, either. The price is there to settle Tuesday wine or birthday wine, and nothing adds it together.
Questions people ask
Is there an app for both wine and cocktails?
Barello. It keeps the wine, the spirits and the cocktail ingredients in one household inventory, so the same shelf that says which Shiraz is ready tonight also says which cocktails you can make. There's no review community and no shop, which is the honest trade.
Can I use the wine in my cellar for cocktails?
Yes. In Barello's library, 18 of the cocktails take a wine, and a bottle already in the cellar fills that line: sparkling for the Bellini, Champagne Cocktail, French 75, Hugo, Kir Royale, Mimosa, Negroni Sbagliato, Pornstar Martini and Spritz; white for the Bicicletta, Kir, Spritzer and White Sangria; red for the Kalimotxo, Mulled Wine, New York Sour, Sangria and Tinto de Verano. It counts any bottle whose name, maker, grape or region says what the recipe needs.
Does Barello track spirits as well as wine?
Yes, in the same inventory. A bottle of gin sits beside a bottle of Barossa Shiraz, and the app reads them together: what to open, what to keep, and what the two shelves can make between them.
Is there a free app to track what wine and spirits are in the house?
Barello. Wine and spirits sit in one household inventory, shared with everyone in the house. It's free to use, and the homepage says what joining early gets you. The bar side tells you what you can make from what's there; the wine side tells you what's ready to open.
Can the whole house use the same list?
Yes. One inventory, shared with the household, rather than a private log on one phone. Whoever opens the bottle, everyone sees it's gone.
Is Barello free?
It's free to use, and the cocktail finder is free with no sign-up at all. As for the app, the homepage says what joining early gets you.
Put a bottle in and see. It takes about thirty seconds to join, and one photo to put a bottle in.
Join freeNot ready for that? Two tools are free and need no sign-up: the cocktail finder for the bar, and the storage guide for the wine.