Late last night a much anticipated iPhone app for the wine industry hit the App Store, opening up a brand new channel to help consumers connect and remember good wines and wineries at events.

Second Glass, the tech-savvy Boston company working to bring wine to the masses with its edgy new marketing and events, is behind this first version of the free app. The release ties in nicely with the company’s 2011 brand expansion across the United States, with its always sold out Wine Riot wine tasting event tour about to hit Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington DC.

The Second Glass app offers easy signup with Facebook Connect or your email account, allowing you to navigate, learn more about, and keep track of the wines you discover while at events. The first event the app will be used at will be next Thursday at the the Waltham Food and Wine Festival. Second Glass will then take the app to their big 3-session Wine Riot event in LA the end of this month and other cities throughout 2011. Beyond this, Second Glass is partnering with other third party wine events for a fee to get the app in even more users hands (Second Glass is no newbie to this, having used a mobile site version of the app with the Wine Expo already.)

“Instead of an app for every event, all the info is stored on our site where we will be a hub for the best wine events around,” explained co-founder and CEO Morgan First. “For users, this also means all the info is easily connected and searchable for when you are at the store trying to remember the name of the wine you tried at an event and really liked.” More users and data means Second Glass will also likely be setting themselves up to roll out more features — like its famously fun recommendations for wines that are good for things like “panty dropping”  and “meeting the parents.”

Event organizers and wineries are enthusiastic about Second Glass’s app because it help attendees actually remember and easily access what wines the drink post-event. Event organizers can load boothes and wines, allowing attendees an easy way to navigate the event and give thumbs up to the wines they like. In turn, this also surfaces top wines who stole the show and were liked by the most attendees.

“At most wine tasting events, even with 5 or more wines, consumers have trouble remembering the wines they enjoyed. Currently wineries print notes or hand out cards but nobody actually keeps those, let alone brings it with them when they go to the store to buy wine,” explained First. “We are helping increase ROI because without remembering the product, all those valuable marketing dollars to attend the event were a waste.” Wineries and event organizers can learn more here.

Wine Riot will be in Boston the end of April, so if you can’t make the Waltham Food and Wine Festival to use this new Boston-built app, be sure to get your tickets early for April!

Download the Second Glass app here, and let us know what you think in the comments!