Small print
Legal and responsible drinking
Age verification
We will not sell alcohol to anyone who is under 18 years of age.
Where the sale happens
Palate: Wine Journal is a tasting journal and does not sell wine. Wine club and shop purchases are made on our sponsor's website under that site's terms, where payment, delivery and age checks take place.
Drink responsibly
Please enjoy wine responsibly. For advice on units and lower-risk drinking, visit drinkaware.co.uk.
Photographs you upload
Photographs stored in Palate must show wine: bottles, labels, corks, cases, glasses, wine lists or cellar shelves. Nudity, sexual content, any sexualised or unsafe image of a child, graphic violence and other unlawful material are strictly forbidden and will be refused. Every photograph is screened automatically before it is saved, anything unsuitable is deleted immediately, and repeated attempts will have photo uploads paused and may be reported to the relevant authorities.
Tasting notes and sharing
Tasting notes are members' personal opinions, based on their own experience of a particular bottle. Members are responsible for what they choose to write and share, including anything they post outside the app. We may remove content that is unlawful or abusive.
Your date of birth
We record your date of birth to confirm you are 18 or over and, for wine club members, to send your birthday bottle. It is only shared with the wine club sponsor where it is needed to fulfil your membership.
Privacy
Privacy notice
Version 2026-08-06. Palate is run to UK GDPR standards, which apply to every member wherever they live.
Who is responsible for your data
Palate: Wine Journal is operated by PalateDigital Ltd, of 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom, acting as the data controller and registered with the Information Commissioner's Office. Write to privacy@palatedigital.com with any question about your data and we will answer within 30 days. Where you are also a wine club member, Our Sommelier Ltd is the controller for your orders and shipping. Payments are taken by Paddle as Merchant of Record, which processes your billing details for that purpose.
One account, one person
A Palate account belongs to one adult and must not be shared — not even with a partner or someone else in your household. There is a data-protection reason as well as a commercial one. On a shared account we cannot tell whose tastings, notes and photographs are whose, so we could not honour a request to see, correct or erase one person's records without affecting the other's. The second person would also never have been shown this notice, never have chosen their cookie settings, and never have confirmed to us that they are 18 or over — which we are obliged to check before anyone uses a service about alcohol. If someone else in your home wants to keep a journal, please ask them to open their own account.
What we hold and how long
Email address and display name
Lawful basis: Performance of our contract with you
Kept: For the life of your account
Date of birth
Lawful basis: Legal obligation — verifying you are 18 or over
Kept: For the life of your account; never shared except with the wine club sponsor where a membership needs it
Tastings, notes, ratings, inventory and important dates
Lawful basis: Performance of our contract with you
Kept: Until you delete them or close your account
Label photographs
Lawful basis: Performance of our contract with you
Kept: Until you delete the photo or close your account; deleted from storage, not merely unlinked
Voice recordings used for dictation
Lawful basis: Performance of our contract with you
Kept: Not kept — audio is transcribed and discarded within the same request
Photo moderation records
Lawful basis: Legitimate interests — preventing unlawful uploads
Kept: Two years, then deleted
Subscription and payment records
Lawful basis: Legal obligation — accounting and tax
Kept: Six years from the end of the relevant financial year, even after you close your account
Optional details you volunteer: country, region, gender, wine confidence and how you found us
Lawful basis: Consent — you choose whether to answer, and may clear your answers at any time
Kept: Until you clear them or close your account; used only in aggregate to plan where we invest, never sold
Which link brought you here: the campaign tags on the link you clicked, the referring website's name and the first page you saw
Lawful basis: Legitimate interests — knowing which of our own adverts and links work, so we spend sensibly
Kept: With your account, until you close it; reported only in aggregate, never sold or shared
Feedback you send us, and whether you agreed to be contacted about it
Lawful basis: Legitimate interests — fixing faults and improving the app you use
Kept: Two years from the date you sent it, or until you close your account, whichever is sooner
Cookie and consent choices
Lawful basis: Legal obligation — proving your choice
Kept: Until you change them
Who else sees your data
We never sell your data and we do not use it to train anyone's AI models. These are the only companies that process it on our behalf.
Lovable Cloud (database, authentication, file storage)
Stores your account, tastings, inventory, label photos and spoken readings.
Processed in: European Union
Lovable AI (label reading, note drafting, photo screening, speech)
Processes a label photo, a dictated sentence or a note draft request at the moment you ask for it.
Processed in: United States and European Union
Paddle.com Market Ltd
Takes payment for Palate Extras credit packs as merchant of record. Card details never reach Palate.
Processed in: United Kingdom and European Union
Our Sommelier Ltd
Where you are also a wine club member, receives the details needed to fulfil and ship your wine.
Processed in: United Kingdom
Albacross Nordic AB
Only if you accept optional measurement: identifies the companies visiting our pages so we can understand business interest. Never runs before you consent.
Processed in: European Union
Google LLC (Google Analytics 4)
Only if you accept optional measurement: counts visits and pages viewed so we can see how Palate is used. Never runs before you consent.
Processed in: United States and European Union
Where data leaves the UK it is protected by the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the equivalent standard contractual clauses.
Your rights
- · Be told what we hold and why
- · Get a copy of your data
- · Have mistakes corrected
- · Have your data erased
- · Restrict how we use it
- · Take your data elsewhere
- · Object to processing based on legitimate interests
- · Not be subject to a decision made solely by a machine
You can export everything we hold, and delete your account, from your profile page — no request needed. Deleted accounts are held for 30 days in case you change your mind, then erased in full apart from the billing records the law requires us to keep. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Cookies and similar storage
Palate uses strictly necessary storage to keep you signed in and to remember your age check — these cannot be switched off because the app will not work without them. Anything optional stays off until you accept it, and rejecting is as easy as accepting.
Palate: Wine Journal is an independent tasting journal. It does not sell wine.