revised profile 6-30-11

Wine is considers to be one of the most social beverages, therefore social and digital media take wine drinking to the next level. With over 400 iphone apps, 1300 wine-tasting related blogs, 7,000 wine related tweets a day, 700 Wineries have a facebook page with an average of 703 fans and lets not forget that over 700,000 people watch wine related videos a month on youtube. Between the technological digital media advances along with viniculture advances the wine community has come a long way since the first written account that we have of it: the Bible. I sat down to talk to my Uncle Daniel Bosch the Senior Viticulturist at Constellation Wines US about how digital media and technology has affected the wine industry.

Consellation Wines US (CWUS) is the largest wine company in the United States. This is based upon sale dollar value, and the leading premium wine supplier in the US. They own nineteen wineries in the United States alone, twenty wineries along with Distilleries in Canada, and twenty other Vineyards and Distilleries in Australia, Europe, South Africa and New Zealand. Needless to say Daniel’s job is a big one; and one that he deals with a rich sense of humor, an excellent pallet and by being extremely technologically savvy.

When I sat down to talk to him on the phone it was strange to not be sitting across the table from him with glasses of Chardonnay in our hands; surrounded by family and friends. He is as busy as he ever was with Beth his daughter who just graduated from UCLA Law, Jimmie his oldest son receiving his Phd from UC Davis and going off to teach at Princeton in the fall and Nick his middle son finishing up Medical School in New York. He’s driving and using his bluetooth and blackberry on his way back from Monteray Bay to his home in Fairview Ca about a twenty minute drive to his work in Napa. I started off asking him when he first started noticing the shift in technical surges in the industry, and his answer took me back to big laptops and large mobile phones “In the early to mid 1990’s was when most of it began. Email was starting to become much more common”.

The first work Mondavi did with Nasa was in the mid 1990s. They developed satellite images or vintners that showed where the best grapes of their crop where located in the vineyards. Along with showing the vintners the health of their overall crop the photos are shot from 400 miles in space. These were used to monitor water irrigation patterns, leaf sizes and any green variable in between. I did some digging on goggle for old articles on the Mondavi-Nasa project and found a photo of my uncle in the vineyard and a quote from the Los Angeles Times. "There were portions of the vineyard that were previously not used for our higher quality wine," says Daniel Bosch, Mondavi vineyards technical manager. "But now the wine from some of those same blocks will be used in our reserve program. That's a big step for us."

Back in 2011 I asked Daniel if they were currently working with Nasa on anything new and he responded with “ We are still working with NASA but on a different project. This project uses satellite imagery and a model to predict irrigation amounts. They are also working with other crops. The USGS recently made the satellite imagery free to the public, so they are now developing additional uses for it.” The work done with NASA even though it was awhile ago has changed the way growers all over the world harvest the 20 millions acres that make up the world’s wine and the 10,000 different kinds of grape vines!

In the harvesting industry today most growers use mechanical pickers and more machine related tools as opposed to digital ones. However this does not mean that the wine industry hasn’t been affected by the digital revolution. The last count for the number of wine apps available was 452. The top ten are : Snooth Wine pro, AG Wine, Hello Vine, Pair it, Dynnc Wine Pro, Wine Events, Wine Wherever, Wine Notes, Wine Enthusiast Guide, and Cor.kz. These apps range from the price of free to $4.99. Cor.kz is the most popular, or well known among the public.

When I spoke to Daniel about the “app-peal” of the app world he said that in fact his company is getting ready to launch a luxury wine app! I feel that this app is definitely for the wine connoisseur, it will have maps photos and distributors of where to find the wine or which vineries are near if you happen to be in California. This new technology that companies such as 94 wines and Cellar Key are using is called Context Sensitive Marketing (CSM or QE codes). You scan the digital barcode and some apps such as Cor.kz and Snooth Wine pro to get you all the information on the bottle, plus take you to a winery’s facebook or event page.

When I asked Daniel if he had taken a look at the wine blogging side of the industry he old me that most blogs you find are tasting related as opposed to viniculturist blogs devoted to growing. Most social media networking is now done online. Just typing vineyards or wineries into facebook thousands of “likes” and “check ins” pop up. With all of this digital media Daniel and I got into a discussion if he felt that digital media had changed the publics prefernece for certain wines? He responded by saying that he doesn’t think people’s preferences for their favorite bottle can be changed by a blog but by pallet and depending on how good the wine actually is. After I told him that acording to my research that Chardonnays were the most popular he laughed and when I finished the listed order of what wines followed he said somethings never change. (Chardonnays are the most popular followed by Merlot, Pinot Noir Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel finishing last.) It is said that 78 percent of consumers trust their peers much more then companies or adds and the top twenty wine bloggers have larger audiences then wine spectator online.

suggested revisions

The girls suggested that I make a more definitive ending paragraph with stating my opinion on the digital media/ technological advances in the industry. Weither I agree with it or what.

I was also having a hard time deciding how to deal with the interview/ profile parts. At the moment I'm kinda making it more essay format, & talking about the industry background first.

A few people suggested questions in paragraph form so.. I'm gonna think about that and play around with it a little bit more.

I talked to my uncle again as well and got a (small) snippet of information about the current project with nasa which I will add in. But honeslty I felt really strong with my draft except for the ending; I'm proud of the effort and research I put in and I feel like all thats left is a little tweaking :)

wine profile

Wine is considers to be one of the most social beverages, therefore social and digital media take wine drinking to the next level. With over 400 iphone apps, 1300 wine-tasting related blogs, 7,000 wine related tweets a day, 700 Wineries have a facebook page with an average of 703 fans and lets not forget that over 700,000 people watch wine related videos a month on youtube. Between the technological digital media advances along with viniculture advances the wine community has come a long way since the first written account that we have of it: the Bible. I sat down to talk to Daniel Bosch the Senior Viticulturist at Constellation Wines US about how digital media and technology has affected the wine industry.

Consellation Wines US (CWUS) is the largest wine company in the United States based upon sale dollar value, and the leading premium wine supplier in the US. They own nineteen wineries in the United States alone, twenty wineries along with Distilleries in Canada, and twenty other Vineyards and Distelleries in Austraila, Europe, South Africa and New Zealand. Needless to say Daniel Bosch's job is a big one.

When we sat down to talk on the phone it was clear he was busy as ever, driving in the car using his bluetooth and blackberry. After twenty-eight years of experience in the industry when did you first start noticing a shift in the technical/digital media surge in the industry? “ Around the early to mid 1990’s was when most of it began. Email was much more common and Mondavi started working with NASA.

“For the Mondavi project, NASA used a digital camera flown on an airplane about 14,000 feet over Napa and Sonoma counties to create a special “vegetation index” using information from the visible and near infrared parts of electromagnetic spectrum.”

In 1993 the images from the space agency helped Mondavi growers detect an infestation of phylloxera- a plant louse that attacks the root of grapevines; plaguing the California wine industry a year before the symptoms would have become obvious in standard air photos. With the remote sensing images you can see what parts of the plant have similar density or vigor. The fields now can be divided in designated areas that can be sampled on the ground for maturity, then harvested separately.

“In the past, Mondavi had harvested an entire vineyard block at once based on an estimate of general ripeness, but some grapes would be over-ripe when harvested and others under-ripe. Remote sensing lets us know when to harvest which segments of the fields at different times to correspond with optimal ripeness.” What about today? are winearies still using this technology in partnership with NASA?

In todays harvesting industry the equipment growers are using according to Bosch is mostly mechanical and less digital. However that does not mean that the wine industry hasn’t been affected by technological advances. Bosch says that because of many software advances a lot of meetings are held online. Most of the time we use Cameras but it can be a bit distracting at times if it is just a conference call. You don’t often know if people are multitasking or if they have given you your full on attention.

Often times Bosch does presentations in front of growers in the industry showing them online resources and he says that most of the time his presentations are in some digital media form or another. “It’s nice to have a connection with people in person; not only do you know that people are paying attention but I feel that training done in person is much more effective then with online programs. Which is what most of the companies in the wine industry are using or their sexual harassment training and IT training.

Today if you go online to wine blogs you find that there are more tasting blogs then vineyard blogs, most social media networking is done online. Just typing vineyards or wineries into facebook thousands of “likes” and “check ins” pop up. When I asked Bosch if he thought the digital media has changed the publics view on certain wines due to popular online discussion he said no. And then laughed when I told him Chardonnays were the most popular followed by Merlot, Pinot Noir Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel finishing last. It’s said that 78 percent of consumers trust their peers much more then companies or adds and the top twenty wine bloggers have larger audiences then wine spectator online.

This makes sense though if I want to find luxury wine along with higher end maps, photos and distributors; I’ll use the one Daniel’s company is getting ready to launch as opposed to reaching for a website or magazine. This new technology which companies such as 94Wines and Cellar Key are using is known as Context Sensitive Marketing (CSM or QR codes). With just a little digital barcode it can give you all the information on the bottle, plus take you to the winery’s facebook or event promotion! This I approve of minus the fact that I know how to pick out good wine. However I don’t believe in virtual wine tasting.

But the folks at Tastoria do! Tastoria is titled as “A Fresh Approach to Discovering Wine” and they describe themselves as a unique media company that produces and broadcasts live online wine tasting events and they disperse wine related videos over the internet. Different members can signs up to host the virtual sessions and share their knowledge. In my opinion this is a bit over rated; get your butt to the vineyard and take in the smell of the soil and the beauty of the vines. For those of us who want to taste more when we go out to restaurants and bars the new tool, which goes hand in hand with the ipad is SmartCellar! SmartCellar operates wirelessly on a secure intranet installed through an onsite server that allows customers to browse a restaurants wine selection. You can browse wines by name, region, varietal and price; the device can also include premium liquors, beers, specialty cocktails, food pairings, and not to mention menu items. This saves trees as well as apparently makes it easier on your waiter and waitress.

In addition to restaurants going digital in the wine industry there are quite a number of companies working to increase the wine industries reach digitally. Vin Tank is one of these such companies with such an idea. They define themselves on there website as “a digital think tank for the wine industry and a group of restlessly intelligent individuals with a dream to bring wine closer to technology in order to score new opportunities for marketing and selling wine in a digital world”.

Wine Techs?

“I do think you'll see better wine as this technology tends to be used more and more. But you're never going to take the art out of winemaking".- Daniel Bosch

As I put my feet up on my coffee table lean back into my couch and sip on a 2009 California Chardonay I'm caught up in thoughts about the wine industry. As a child my father grew grapes on our property and I helped with the crush, picking and bottling process. The first time I went wine tasting I was 16; now going tasting with my parents and family is expected when they visit.

My Uncle Daniel Bosch is the Director, Senior Viticulturalist at CWUS. He as worked in teh industry for 30 years. Working for Mondavi winery in Napa valley for most of his career until a company merger. At Thanksgiving he brings the wine everyyear and when my father askes "Dan how much for a case?" his response is normally along the lines of "well its around 200$ a case Mike". But between his busy job and family with three college graduates he stays extremely connected with technology. He and I are the "crackberry" users along with Macbooks and ipads and ipods staying as up todate as he possibly can.

Today wine consumers are able to access more then 1 million user-generated reviews from winery's on www.cellartracker.com or pull out an application that can scan a wine bottle's bar code to provide instant reviews. With an industry that is hugely based on agriculture developments how is digital technology changing the face of wine making and the wine industry as a whole? What sorts of technology other then apple friendly ones are out there to help? A recent article from the Press Democrat reported that "

"At Jordan Winery, the use of technoloy has become ubiquitous. Winemakers can control the temperatre of fermentation tanks from their iPhones, or host Skype Video chats with Oenophiles in Atlanda of Little Rock, and every employee conducts daily business fram an iPad"

But other then the daily business of running a 1500 acre vineyard that happens to be one of Napa's most prestigious how much has technological and digital media changed the face of winemaking? Esspeciall in a business that use to be complety based on soil and aggriculture hands manually taming the grapes.

Pencils to PIxels

From Thoreau to Plato many highly thought of scholars have hated new ideas. Plato rejected the idea of writing things down because he felt that it would weaken our memories. Thoreau said the telegraph was worthless and Samuel F. B. Morse rejected the telephone. Great men with great ideas who at the begining of a new time in history couldn't accept the new inventions.

Spoken language will always be the easiest thing for us to accept as humans. Just look at our legal system: you need someone to attest whethere or not a crime was commited. This is why people sometimes doubt the facts online. Although often it is the most up todate source. However the same problem them arrises that people were dealing with when writing first became a part of human life. People prefered to have human witnesses that were interactive; written documents do not respond to questions and therefore where not interactive enough for people to put their faith in them.

Since the invention of the computer there has also been skepticism; people often wondered " what are we going to do with these calculating machines". Since our world now revolves around computers we have learned to trust writing that leaves a paper trail. When people ask if librarys will become non existant I respond with a HELL NO!

Libraries are sources of history, learning and librarians have research skills many people have no idea even exist. Growing up with a librarian has always taught me to check my sources and when in doubt go to the library. There will always be people who can't accept change and we as the now generation have to keep ourselves in check with learning and keeping up as well as using the immense knowledge we learn from digital media resoucres for a better world.

Culture Conforms

The American Culture of reading and writing has transformed into a read only culture. Many citizens sit around watching tv constantly, ( my own retired father is one of them). The media has captured us and put us into this pandoras box, which only they have the key to release us from yet they won't.

Thankfully their are a few type A people left in the technological world, who want to make a difference and use digital technology to help humanity for the better. My mother a librarian for 39 years has activily held this stance with me since I was a child. Which is probalby why I have read so many books yet I am movie deprived until... Netflix, Hulu and the persuasion of my friends that I watch more television and movies. However as a musician I do a good deal of research online today when finding: sheet music, albums, and information about the music I am performing. The new technologys that have been created such as Sound Cloud to share music and help all the artists out there looking for ways to promote themselves is incredible.

The music community has been on the cutting edge of technology and digital promotion for qutie sometime. From Itunes to Wikaphonia and the millions of other sights that are out there to help you expand your career as fast as possible. Even so I have always been a creator and that is why this new age of digital creation is so exciting. With the changes that are constantly happening in todays world there are so many options for how we can expand our education systems as well as public domain materails and just the sources that are available online.

Clay Shirky described the digital technology media as a race emphasizing that it should really be a triathalon where people produce, share and view the information. I feel that we are now on our way to accepting the new things technology can teach us and help us with more so esspecially with our children because they are the future.