It's a blessing and a curse to be a wine lover living in Sacramento.

After all, you're surrounded by hundreds of wineries producing some of the world's best vintages – from urban wineries like Revolution Wines and Rail Bridge Cellars here in the central city to Sacramento County, the Sierra Nevada foothills and beyond to Napa Valley.

But when you want to do some wine tasting, that blessing can feel like a curse. How do you choose from all those tasting rooms? And with more and more of them charging tasting fees, how do you find the best deals: from free tastings and fees that apply toward purchases to private tastings well worth the extra bucks?

A couple of local wine connoisseurs have come up with an answer. Former Sacramento Bee food and wine editor Bob Ehlert and his wife Tana, an equally ardent wine lover, have developed a new mobile device application called Wine Tasting Tab. The culinary tourism app will launch in as soon as two weeks on all Apple platforms (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) and Motorola Droid smart phones.

Such an application will make wine tasting tours easier, said winemaker Craig Haarmeyer, co-owner of Revolution Wines.

"That sounds like a great idea," Haarmeyer said. "I've often wished I had something like that – when I've been out of town, especially."

The Ehlerts were spending a weekend on the coast with their three adult sons when they all decided to visit some nearby wineries on their way back to Sacramento. Crossing over the Sonoma Mountains, the first winery they came to in Healdsburg charged $10 per person.

They realized they could quickly spend a few hundred dollars hitting three or four wineries. Two of them then used their iPhones to try to find free tasting rooms. That didn't work either, because at least half of all wineries don't list that information, Ehlert said.

So they just drove back country roads and called wineries as they found them to ask what their fees were.

"This system did not work well," said Ehlert, who helped develop the newspaper's wine website, sacwineregion.com. "But it did give me the idea for the app."

While a few other wine-tasting applications already exist, Wine Tasting Tab lets you search by tasting room fees simultaneously with location, type of wine and other info.

"The thing that we're focusing on is, do they have a tasting fee? And if they have one, what do you get for that?" Ehlert said.

Wine Tasting Tab has 25 categories of information, including addresses, websites, varietals, tasting menus, bottle prices, hours, whether you need an appointment and more. The application can say if the winery offers wine and food pairings, or whether it has a view and is pet-friendly. You can also click "map it," and the device will create a map.

For example, you can find out that at Rail Bridge Cellars, 400 N. 16th St., tastings are free, by appointment and bottles cost $15 to $27. For Revolution Wines, 2831 S St., you can find out where they get their grapes and that tastings cost $5 to $10.

Using the app, you can enter the region in the correct field, then narrow it down to wineries with food or those with tasting rooms that cost $5 or less. The app carries the entire wine-tasting spectrum, starting with destination wineries like Ironstone in Murphys and Quintessa in Napa. The bigger wineries are often those with free tastings. They also may have a gift shop, restaurant, wine education and cooking demonstrations on site.

The app also lists many gems off the beaten path.

"I like walking up to a winery like Porter Creek in Sonoma County. The first thing you see is a wine dog wagging its tail. And you go inside this little shack. But you talk to an amazingly enthusiastic person at the tasting room bar," he said. "Once again, it's a free tasting in Sonoma, which is a little on the rare side. And they have just some fabulous wines there."

Other mobile apps don't include Sacramento region wineries or charge extra for those regions' applications. Tasting Room Finder is another application.

At $2.99, Wine Tasting Tab will launch with information on about 650 tasting rooms. A third are located in the Sacramento wine region – Sacramento, San Joaquin, Nevada, El Dorado, Calaveras, Amador, Yolo and Placer counties – as well as about 250 in Napa County and 200 in Sonoma County, Ehlert said.

Ehlert has been approved as an application developer by Apple and Google. He developed the app with technical support from an experienced app consultant.

Both companies must approve final versions of the application before it's launched. He expects to submit the final version early this week. The application may launch as soon as Oct. 26.

They expect to add a few hundred more wineries over the next few months for a total of about 1,000 by year's end. The Ehlerts both have day jobs. They've spent many nights and weekends at computers entering all the data by hand.

"It's not rocket science," he said. "It's just hard work."

Yet they've also gotten to discover charming wineries with interesting people, fascinating stories and amazing wine.

"The thing I find most enjoyable is to find a boutique winery where the person who's pouring is also the person who grew the grapes, made the wine, washed the wine glasses and feeds the wine dog," he said. "If you have any interest in wine, you want to get out there and check it out for yourself." 

Revolution Wines photo provided by Revolution Wines. 

Photos of Holly's Hill tasting room patio in El Dorado County and Ironstone in Murphys provided by Bob Ehlert.