Support & User Guide

Zélar is a personal wine cellar for your iPhone and iPad. You build your racks and wine fridges as they stand at home, place every bottle where it actually lives, and let the app keep track of what's ready to drink. The name comes from the Portuguese zelar — to watch over, to care for.

Everything is stored on your device (with optional iCloud sync), and there is no account to create. This guide walks through every part of the app. Questions the guide doesn't answer? Write to anders@whaaat.co.

The five tabs

The first time you open Zélar, a short welcome guide introduces the main ideas. You can replay it any time under More → Introduction.

Build your cellar in three steps

1. Create a storage unit. On the Cellar tab, tap + → New rack or fridge. A rack is a grid of rows and columns of slots (A1, A2, B1 …); a wine fridge has stacked shelves, a set temperature, and optional temperature zones. You can also add an "other" unit for boxes and loose storage. Everything can be renamed and resized later.
2. Add your wines. Tap + Add wine and fill in what you know — only the wine's name is required. You can record producer, vintage, country, region, appellation, type, style, grapes, organic/biodynamic certification, price, alcohol %, a drinking window, notes, and photos of the label.
3. Place your bottles. When adding a wine, choose the number of bottles and a placement — for example "Rack A · A3". Bottles without a placement are collected under No placement so you can sort them out later.

You can keep several cellars (home, summer house, storage locker …) — switch between them with the cellar chip at the top of the Cellar tab, or manage them under More → Cellars.

Bottles in, bottles out

Drinking a bottle

Open a wine, pick a bottle and tap Drink. You can set the date, a 1–5 star rating, a tasting note, and the occasion, then save it as drunk. The bottle leaves your stock and appears in your tasting log. Tapped too soon? Use Undo — back in stock in the bottle's context menu.

Adjusting stock

Bought more of a wine you already have? On the wine's page, use Edit stock to add bottles (with placement and purchase date) or remove miscounted ones. Removed bottles are simply deleted — they are not marked as drunk.

Moving bottles

Use Move on any bottle to give it a new slot or shelf. On the Rack tab you can tap a slot to see its contents and add wine directly to that spot.

Finding a wine

See all wines opens the full list with search (by name, grape, country or region) and filter chips: All · In stock · Drunk · No placement · Red · White · Ready now.

Know when to pull the cork

Give a wine a drinking window (e.g. "2026–2042", optionally with a peak year) and Zélar tracks where the wine is in its life: too young, ready, at peak, closing soon, or past. The Cellar tab shows a shortcut to everything that's ready to drink now, and Insights lists what's ready and what to drink soon — so nothing quietly slips past its window.

Your tasting log

The Tasted tab gathers everything you've tasted: bottles drunk from your own cellar, and wines you've tasted elsewhere.

• Tasted a great wine at a restaurant? Tap + New tasting and log it with place, date, rating, note, price and photos — no cellar bottle needed.
• Bought it afterwards? Use Convert to stock on the tasting to create it as a cellar wine with bottles, carrying your rating and note along. The tasting stays in your log, marked as converted.

Your cellar in numbers

The Insights tab shows your collection by type, country, and vintage, along with total value and average price per bottle, plus per-country statistics.

As you rate wines, Zélar unlocks My taste — a personal taste profile built from your own ratings: the style you love most, your favourite grapes with average scores, and your top-rated wines.

Copy, paste — no API keys

Zélar works with whichever AI assistant you already use (ChatGPT, Claude, or another). Everything goes through your clipboard — the app never talks to any AI service itself.

Ask your AI

Under More → Ask your AI, choose a task — food pairing for dinner, value my cellar, buying suggestions, or the restaurant wine list — and tap Copy prompt. You get a ready-made prompt that includes a compact inventory of your cellar and tasting history. Paste it into your AI and get answers about your wines.

Paste from AI

Asked your AI to suggest wines, or transcribed a receipt or a cellar list? More → Paste from AI reads structured text from your clipboard and creates the wines automatically, including placement. Tap the ? in the corner for the exact format and a Copy format button — copy that into your AI first, and its answers will come back in a form Zélar understands (both Danish and English field names are recognized). There's a matching import for tasted wines on the Tasted tab.

Export as Markdown

More → Export as Markdown renders your whole cellar as a readable document — grouped by cellar, rack and shelf, with unplaced bottles and your tasting history. Copy it or Share as file. Tip: keep it in an AI project or chat, and your assistant always knows your collection.

Keeping your data safe

iCloud sync

More → Data → iCloud sync syncs your cellar between your devices through your own private iCloud — the developer has no access to it. Changes to the toggle take effect the next time the app starts.

Backup & restore

More → Backup & restore exports your entire database as a single file (with or without photos) that you can store anywhere, and restores from a backup file. Restoring replaces the current contents, so the app asks you to confirm first.

Starting over

More → Clear all data wipes everything after a double confirmation. There is no undo — export a backup first.

Making Zélar yours

• Currency — show prices in DKK, EUR, USD, GBP, NOK or SEK. This changes the label only; existing prices are not converted.
• Stylized rack / fridge — show your storage as furniture with bottles seen from above, or as a simple diagram.
• Language — Zélar is available in Danish and English and follows your device language (adjustable per-app under iOS Settings → Zélar → Language).
• Share anonymous usage statistics — under More → Privacy. Anonymous, event-level statistics help improve the app; turn this off any time. Your wines and notes are never included — see the privacy policy.

Common questions

Do I need an account?

No. There are no accounts, sign-ups or passwords. Your data lives on your device and, if you enable it, in your own iCloud.

Can Zélar scan barcodes or labels?

Not currently. The camera is used to attach label and bottle photos to your wines and tastings. For fast entry, try the Paste from AI workflow — photograph a receipt or list, ask your AI to transcribe it in Zélar's format, and paste.

I marked a bottle as drunk by mistake.

Open the bottle's context menu and choose Undo — back in stock. The bottle returns to your inventory and the tasting entry is removed.

Does deleting the app delete my data?

Data stored locally is removed with the app. If iCloud sync was on, your data remains in your private iCloud and comes back when you reinstall. Consider exporting a backup file before deleting.

Which devices are supported?

iPhone and iPad running iOS 17 or later.

Zélar is built and supported by one independent developer. Found a bug, missing a feature, or just stuck? Write directly to:

anders@whaaat.co

Please include your app version (shown under More → About) and, for bugs, a short description of what you did and what happened.