Your pocket sommelier beta
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Your palate, in sommelier language. Read it out or just show the screen.
Every wine you actually drink, the house remembers: a bottle confirmed at home, a great glass out, a snap of something special. Pins mark the journeys; your rank grows with all of them.
Create a free account and your cellar, wishlist and pins follow you to any phone.
Twenty seconds so your sommelier starts on the right foot. Or skip; it learns as you go either way.
I gravitate towards… (pick up to two)
Not really my thing… (optional, pick up to two)
A wine you've loved lately? (optional)
If the cork came out, it counts toward your pins, and every answer teaches your sommelier a little more about your taste.
What's the table having?
The vibe
Garde opens full-screen like a real app, you get the little bottle on your phone. It's also the only way Garde can tap your shoulder when a bottle hits its window.
On Android: browser menu → Add to Home screen.
In French, garde means to keep, to guard. A vin de garde is a wine worth cellaring: one with the tannin and acidity to grow deeper, smoother and more interesting through years in the dark.
You'll rarely see the word on a label. Knowing which bottles have it, and when they've arrived, is the old skill of the cellar. That's the job this app has taken on: guard what's worth keeping, say when it's time, and order well while you wait.
En garde — before you drink it too soon.
What's great, what's broken, what's missing: it lands straight with the Garde team.
Reading the list…
Garde will hand this wine to Saison for a seasonal recipe match. The handoff point is wired and waiting.
Your pocket sommelier
Order like you know.
Keep what you love.
Tap to step inside
Nothing on the shelf yet. Photograph your spirits and the house counts what it can pour tonight.
Ice, sugar and lemons: taken as a given.
Half the book needs nothing but a glass and a spoon. For the other half, your kitchen already has the answer.
A shaker is a clean jam jar with a tight lid. Fill it two-thirds with ice, hold the lid down firmly, and shake hard for ten seconds. Cold hands mean it is working.
A strainer is that same lid held slightly ajar, or a sieve over the glass. A sieve also catches the pips, which is the real job.
A jigger is an egg cup, near enough: most hold about 45 ml. Or count tablespoons, two to a shot.
A bar spoon is any long teaspoon, or a chopstick. Stirring wants twenty slow turns, not vigour.
A muddler is the handle end of a wooden spoon. Press the mint, never shred it; you want the oils, not the leaf.
A mixing glass is a pint glass. It has always been a pint glass.
The one thing worth getting right: more ice than feels sensible. A full glass melts slower than a half-empty one, so the drink stays cold and stays itself.
Roughly in the order each one improves a drink. None of it is urgent.
1. A jigger. Measuring properly is most of the difference between a good drink and a poor one. Around fifteen dollars, and the single best thing you can buy.
2. A Hawthorne strainer. The one with the spring. Fits any glass, keeps the ice back.
3. A shaker. Two-piece if you like the look, though the jar honestly works.
4. Big ice moulds. One large cube in a rocks glass beats six small ones. Cheap, and the most visible upgrade.
5. A citrus press. Only if you make sours often. Your hands work; the press just saves them.
That is the whole list. Anything past it is furniture.
Nobody begins with twenty bottles. Three, chosen well, pour a whole evening.
1 · Gin. A proper Gin & Tonic tonight; the Gimlet and the Tom Collins by the weekend. Five classics from one bottle.
2 · Campari. The bitter red that turns a shelf into an aperitivo hour. Campari Soda immediately; a fluffy Garibaldi on Sunday.
3 · Sweet vermouth. The quiet fixer. With the other two you now own the Negroni, the Americano and the Milano–Torino. Ten classics from three bottles.
Branching out? a bourbon brings the fireside wing (Old Fashioned, Whiskey Sour); a prosecco in the fridge brings the spritzes and the French 75; vodka with a coffee liqueur brings Espresso Martini nights.
Buy what you'll actually drink; a shelf grows one true bottle at a time. Ice, sugar and lemons: taken as a given.
The faded bottles are yours too. No recipe calls for them yet, and Garde will start pouring from them the moment one does.
Missed any?
Snap each wine you own and Garde manages the whole cellar: quantities, drinking windows, and suggestions for growing it. New varieties to explore, what to restock, how to keep the collection in balance.
Nothing resting yet. Snap a bottle you own and Garde will help you know when it's at its best.
Drinking windows and values are Garde's estimates, offered as a guide rather than gospel.