Miniature spectrometers can be applied for various purposes in wide areas. This paper shows how a wellmade spectrometer on-a-chip of a low performance and low-cost filter-array can be used for recognizing types of red wine. Light spectra are processed through a filter-array of a spectrometer after they have passed through the wine in the cuvettes. Without recovering the original target spectrum, pattern recognition methods are introduced to detect the types of wine. A wavelength cross-correlation turns out to be a good distance metric among spectra because it captures their simultaneous movements and it is affine invariant. Consequently, a well-designed spectrometer is reliability in terms of its repeatability.