Palate
A guided wine tasting companion for dinner parties.
Palate is a host-orchestrated progressive web app that transforms a dinner party into a guided sensory masterclass. The host controls pace from a dedicated panel; guests work through each wine via structured tasting phases with expert guidance at every step.
The problem it solves
Most people taste wine reactively. They experience it but have no framework for noticing why it tastes the way it does. Palate introduces a structured but invisible scaffold — it tells you what to notice before you taste, explains why while you're tasting, and captures your impressions after. Compressing years of sensory training into one evening.
How it works
Guests join via a 4-character room code on any device. The host advances wines and phases from a dedicated control panel. Each wine moves through six structured phases: appearance, aroma (pre-swirl), aroma (post-swirl), structure, flavor, and finish.
Every phase includes a "Why does this happen?" card — a collapsible science explanation grounded in grape chemistry, terroir, and winemaking technique. After each wine, guests record aroma notes, flavor impressions, structure ratings, and a one-word summary.
Features
- Host control panel with phase and wine advancement
- Blind tasting mode with host-controlled reveal
- Decanting demonstration split-screen module
- Anonymous group rating aggregation
- Per-wine tasting notes with PDF export
- Offline-first architecture
- No accounts required — join via room code
Design philosophy
The app surfaces one prompt at a time. Maximum interaction per step is fifteen seconds. After each wine, the phone goes face-down. The data collected becomes the starting point of conversation, not a replacement for it.