Wine is considered 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 with facebook fan pages and the 700,000 people who will watch a wine related video on youtube this month; its apparent the digital drinking revolution is here. With all the technological digital media advances and the advances is viniculture the wine community has come a long way. 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 their sale dollar value, and the fact that they are the leading premium wine supplier in the US. They own nineteen wineries in the United States alone, twenty wineries plus 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 sitting down to interview him on the phone, it was stran He’s informs me straight off that he is driving and using his bluetooth and blackberry. He is currently on his way back from Monteray Bay to his home in Fairview Ca, about a twenty minute drive to his work in Napa.Daniels career started off after graduating from UC Davis in () where he was a researcher. Following that he worked for Crop Care which is a vineyard consulting firm. His career took off though when he started working for Robert Mondavi. At the end of 2004 he was the only employe that Constellation brought over to their company when they bought Mondavi.
Today his job could not be done nearly as efficiently without his technological resources. Going back to the beginning (or middle) Daniel said that he first started noticing the shift in technical surges in the industry: “in the early to mid 1990‘s was when it most of it began. Email was starting to become much more common and we started to work with NASA”. This answer brought me back to big laptops and clunky (fat) computer screens and large mobile phones.
The first work Mondavi did with NASA was in the mid 1990s. Together they developed satellite images or vintners that showed where the best grapes of the crop was located in the vineyards. Along with showing the vintners the health of their overall crop the photos were shot from 400 miles in space. They were then used to monitor water irrigation patterns, leaf sizes and any green variable in between. After doing some digging on goggle for old articles on the Mondavi-Nasa project I 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 the present via email I questioned 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 grape supply 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 a price of free to $4.99. Cor.kz is by far most popular and well known among the public.
When Daniel and I spoke 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 on the bottle using apps such as Cor.kz and Snooth Wine pro to get you all the information on the bottle. From year to over 2,000,000 notes and ratings from experts. As well as ratings from CellarTracker’s community of wine drinkers. Apps such as these can even take you to the winery’s facebook page or direct you to a related blog.
Blog. This word has shaped a generation. As of February 16, 2011 there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. Bosch says that although their are many wine related blogs most are tasting related. As opposed to viniculturist blogs devoted to growing. Acording to Cellarer’s list of the top 100 wine related blogs Snooth has the highest valuation of $215,859. No wonder there are so many jobs out there devoted to digital marketing.
Most social media networking is now done online. Just typing vineyards or wineries into facebook and thousands of “likes” and “check ins” pop up. With all of this digital media being thrown in our faces Daniel and I discussed if he felt that digital media had changed the publics preference for certain wines? His response was that he doesn’t think people’s preferences for their favorite bottle could be changed by a blog. But by pallet, and depending on how good the wine actually is. After I informed him that according to my research Chardonnays were the most popular he let out a hardy laugh saying “some things never change”. According to online surveys 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. In addition to the online audience Bosch has the eyes and ears of growers in his daily life.
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. With all of the software advances a lot of meetings are held online. Most of the time Bosch uses a camera but at times if it’s just a conference call it can be a tad bit distracting. You don’t often know if people are multitasking or if they are giving you their full attention. “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” Today most companies in the wine industry are using online programs for their sexual harassment training and IT training.In addition to online programs the newest thing for wine consumers is Tastoria!
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. For those who want to taste more when they 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. Customers can browse wines by name, region, varietal and price; the device also includes premium liquors, beers, specialty cocktails, food pairings, and not to mention menu items. Which saves trees as well as apparently makes it easier on your waiter and waitress.
While the world is going digital Bosch is happy doing his job with the help of technology. He staying busy this summer enjoying time with his loving wife Jane his three grown kids and friends. Trips to Yosemite and backpacking gives him a break from the technical world and a chance to unwind with a fine bottle of wine. “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.
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