Privacy policy

Winetrip helps you plan wine journeys in the Western Cape. This policy explains what we collect when you use www.winetrip.travel, why, who helps us run the site, and how you can see, change or delete your information.

Who is responsible

For anything about your information, use the contact form.

What we collect

• Your account. When you sign in, we receive your name, email address and profile photo from your sign-in provider (for example Google).
• Journeys you save. The date, start location, party size and the estates and restaurants in each journey.
• What you choose to share. Journey posts, photos, comments, reactions, people you follow, reviews, tasting notes, estates you mark as visited, and group visits you host or join.
• Venue managers. The venues you manage and the changes you make to them.
• How the site is used. Page views and a few events, such as saving a journey, counted with Umami. It sets no cookies and doesn't store your IP address.
• Questions from AI assistants. When an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT uses the Winetrip connector, we receive which of its tools it used and the filters it chose, such as a region, a day or a budget, and log them to see what people look for. We don't receive your conversation or anything that identifies you.

You can plan a journey without an account. That plan stays in your browser until you close the tab. When you search for a start location or plan a route, the search text and the stops are sent to Google Maps to find places and drive times.

Why we use it

• To run your account and save, show and share your journeys (to provide the service).
• To show what you choose to publish (your choice).
• To keep the site working and secure, and to understand which features help (our legitimate interest).

We don't sell your information, show advertising, or use it to build a profile of you.

What other people see

Public journey posts and comments show your name and profile photo, along with the photos you add. Your reviews and ratings, your handle if you set one, and your name on group visits you host or join are visible to everyone. Private posts aren't shown to anyone else. Your email address is never shown.

Who helps us run Winetrip

• Clerk, for sign-in (United States)
• Vercel, for hosting and photo storage
• Neon, for the database (Frankfurt, Germany)
• Google Maps Platform, for place search and drive times
• Umami, for cookie-free usage statistics, hosted on Vercel

Some of these companies are outside South Africa and the European Union. We only use providers that protect your information under contracts with the safeguards the law requires.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and what you've saved until you ask us to delete it. You can delete journeys, posts, reviews and tasting notes yourself at any time. To delete your account and everything you've saved, use the contact form and we'll do it within 30 days, apart from anything we must keep by law.

Cookies

We only use the cookies that keep you signed in. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

Your rights

You can ask to see the information we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or object to how we use it. Use the contact form and we'll reply within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Regulator in South Africa (inforegulator.org.za) or to the data protection authority where you live.

Changes

When we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use information you've already given us, we'll tell you before it applies.