Drinking windows
The wine app that tells you when to drink each bottle
Barello is a free wine app that tells you when to drink the wines you keep at home. Add a bottle and it shows the year it opens, the year it's at its best and the year to drink it by, then moves those dates for where you live and which room the bottle's in. A cupboard through a Brisbane summer ages wine faster than a wine fridge does, so its dates come forward.
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. It's on Google Play for Android, and on an iPhone it runs in the browser.
Coming soon to theApp Store
What it shows you
Each wine gets its window drawn as a curve rather than a bar, because some wines climb to a peak and hold while others are best young and fade. In the cellar list every bottle carries a word for where it is now: hold, peaking now, in window, closing soon or past peak.
Sort the cellar by Drink me first and the bottles at their best, and the ones running out of time, come to the top. Tonight goes a step further and picks the one bottle to open.
It tells you without being asked, too. On the first Sunday of each month a Drink soon notification names the bottles in their last good year or past it, and if you turn it on, Tonight's pick arrives at 5pm on the nights you choose.
See when your own bottles are ready. Takes about thirty seconds to join.
Join freeMoved for where you keep it
Every published drinking window assumes a cellar at about 13 degrees, and most bottles live somewhere warmer. Warmth runs a wine's clock faster, so Barello asks where you live, reads ten years of daily temperatures for your town, and asks which room the wine is in. Ten good years in a cellar is about seven in a Melbourne cupboard and six in a Brisbane one; on a living-room shelf, six and five.
Past about 25 degrees a wine is spoiling rather than ageing, and a garage through a Melbourne or Brisbane summer is over that line, so it gets a warning instead of a nearer date. It never stretches a window either: a wine fridge keeps the cellar dates, and the kitchen fridge doesn't buy extra years. How that's worked out goes through the science and its limits.
Other apps that tell you when to drink
| App | How it tells you | Free | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barello | A window on each wine from its grape or style and vintage, moved for your town's climate and the room it's in, with a monthly Drink soon reminder | Every window | Android, and iPhone in the browser |
| Vivino | Drinking windows on the bottles in your cellar | Windows are part of Premium, $75.95 a year | iPhone and Android |
| CellarTracker | A drink-now list built from what other members are opening | The cellar; the subscription adds “enhanced coverage” of windows | iPhone and Android |
| InVintory | Drink windows and maturity alerts, in its own words | Windows “on select wines”; Premium A$184.99 a year | iPhone and Android |
What's free and what each plan costs is read off each app's own upgrade screen or plans page on an Australian account, checked 23 September 2026.
Two things separate them: whether the window is free for every bottle, and whether it knows where the bottle lives. Barello's window is free for every wine it can place, and it's moved by the temperature in your town and in the room the bottle's in. The best wine cellar apps goes through the wider field.
What it doesn't do
It doesn't set the window from critics' scores or other drinkers' notes: the dates come from the grape or the style and the vintage, then the house. A wine without a vintage, or one it can't place, gets no window rather than a guess. And the reminders are for bottles running out of time, not for the day a young one opens.
Questions people ask
Is there an app that can tell me when to drink wine?
Yes. Barello gives each wine you keep a drinking window, the year it opens, the year it's at its best and the year to drink it by, and moves those dates for where you live and which room the bottle's in. It's free, it's on Google Play for Android, and on an iPhone it runs in the browser.
Is the drinking window free?
Yes, in Barello, for every wine it can place. Vivino puts its drinking windows behind Premium, and InVintory's free plan has them "on select wines", in its own words.
Will it remind me when to drink a bottle?
Yes. On the first Sunday of each month a Drink soon notification names the bottles in their last good year or past it. Turn on Tonight's pick and it arrives at 5pm on the nights you choose, with one bottle to open.
How does it know when a wine will be at its best?
From the grape, or the style where that matters more, and the vintage. Then it moves the dates for the temperature where the bottle's kept, because warmth ages wine faster: a cupboard brings them forward, and a wine fridge keeps the cellar dates.
Does it work on an iPhone?
Yes, in the browser for now: open barello.app in Safari and add it to your home screen. The App Store app is in review with Apple. On Android it's on Google Play.
See your own shelf do this. About thirty seconds to join, one photo per bottle, and it's free to use.
Join freeHow the window is worked out: when to drink wine. Weighing it against Vivino? The comparison is here. What's free in Barello.