A Vivino alternative when you want your own notes

Disclosure up front: this page is written by Punt, the maker of a private wine journal for iPhone. Vivino is an independent product. We are not affiliated with Vivino, CellarTracker, InVintory, Sommo, Crumble, or WineBudd. Where Vivino is stronger, we say so. Descriptions here follow public positioning. Feature and pricing details can change — verify them on each product’s site and store listing.

Many people type “Vivino alternative” when what they actually want is different: fewer strangers’ ratings in the way, a place for their own words, or a journal that does not feel like a social network. Those are different jobs. The right tool depends on which job you have.

Start with the job, not the brand

• Personal memoryYou can find the bottle you loved, with your words beside it.
• Community scoreYou see what many people rated, and often a path to discuss or buy.
• CollectionYou know what you own, where it sits, and when to drink it.
• LearningStructured tasting practice and study.

Vivino vs a private wine journal

Vivino’s public positioning centres on label scanning, community ratings, and often a path toward buying wine. People use it successfully for that. This page does not argue that Vivino should disappear. Vivino users can keep personal notes. Vivino’s label-scanner guide says a scan can be saved with a personal rating and tasting notes. The product’s centre of gravity is still the community rating and marketplace layer.

A private wine journal’s centre of gravity is the opposite: your bottle, your reaction, your retrieval — without a feed or followers.

• Community scannerWhat do people think of this wine?
• Private journalWhat did I think, and how do I find it again?

Other private journals exist (Crumble, WineBudd, Sommo’s journal features, and others). “No feed” and “private” are table stakes in that niche, not a unique slogan. What still has to be earned is a quiet save workflow, a story of place and making beside your own words, and a record you can actually retrieve.

Punt keeps the place, the making, and your reaction beside the bottle, without asking you to perform. That is a different record from a community score. It is not a claim that other apps never store notes.

This page is the explicit comparison. For what “private” should mean on iPhone, and how to check any app’s claims, read a private wine journal for iPhone.

Free vs paid (read both carefully)

Pricing changes. Check each App Store listing before you buy.

Vivino, at a high level. Core scanning and community ratings are widely used for free. Vivino also offers paid Premium tiers for people who want more. Exact features and prices belong to Vivino’s current store listing and site. Verify them there, not from this page.

Punt.

• Identification and saving: free and unlimited
• First twelve successful drawings: free
• “Draw every bottle”: optional one-time in-app purchase (US$29.99; local App Store pricing applies) for continued drawings
• Not a subscription
• Saving, remembering, and export remain available without the drawing purchase
• Requires iPhone. iOS 18 or later

If what you wanted was cloud sync across devices, Punt does not sell that today. Choose a product that promises sync and explains the account behind it — or keep export copies yourself.

Privacy and where your notes live

“Private” should describe a mechanism, not a vibe.

On Punt:

• Bottle records, photographs, reactions, and notes live in the app container on the iPhone.
• There is no Punt cloud copy of your library and no account database of your bottles.
• Sign in with Apple is optional and is not a backup. It does not sync the library.
• Label photographs leave the phone when Punt identifies a wine. Spoken notes leave when they are transcribed. The wine’s name and facts leave when Punt draws its pictures. Opening Next can also send bottle facts and your reactions, without photographs or your notes.
• Punt has no third-party analytics or advertising SDK in the app. This website uses Google Analytics only after a visitor allows it, and it measures the website rather than anyone’s wine library.
• Deleting the app deletes the local library, because there is no cloud copy. Settings exports a text file of the bottles and notes on this phone. It does not include the label photographs.

Details are on the privacy page. For a longer checklist of what to ask any “private” wine app — including how to use Apple’s App Privacy Report — read a private wine journal for iPhone.

We do not claim to audit Vivino’s full privacy or data practices here. Read Vivino’s own privacy materials and App Store privacy labels if that is a deciding factor for you.

Tasting-note quality: score vs your own words

A community score answers “what do people think?” A personal note answers “what did I notice, and would I want this again?”

Neither is morally superior. They solve different problems.

If your notes keep turning into half-remembered scores with no bottle identity, you may want a journal that forces identity and reaction first. If you mainly buy wine by average rating and merchant availability, a score-led scanner is still the better daily tool.

Practical note-writing without critic-speak: how to keep wine tasting notes and wine tasting notes in your own words. Restaurant workflow: remember a wine at a restaurant.

When Vivino is the better choice

Choose a cellar tracker when you own many bottles and need inventory, location, or drinking windows.

Choose a private journal, including Punt, when the recurring pain is: “I loved that bottle last month and I cannot find what it was, or what I thought.”

Fair coexistence beats forced migration.

How Punt works in one minute

1. Photograph a label or type a wine name.
2. Mark Loved it · Liked it · Not for me.
3. Add a line in your own words, by typing or speaking.
4. Return later by searching producer, place, dish, or people clues in your notes.

No feed. No followers. Optional drawings for an illustrated shelf after twelve free successful drawings.