To-and-Fro

On January 1st we
celebrated our two year
anniversary in business.  
 It’s been an amazing journey
trying to merge wine and
technology.  

Wine. Technology.
 And two things have proven true in the last
couple of years: we believe the synergy between
wine and digital will move our industry forward
and we encourage wineries every day to
improve their use of technology to sell and
market their product DTC, DTT, and in the trade.

Wine. Technology.
 Our industry has
experienced two years of
turmoil and challenges.
And as a result, the often ignored
digital channel is now increasing
in relevance to our industry every
single day.
Wine online. We believe.
 To all the people who believe in us,
our clients, our friends, and
especially our family.  Thank you for
supporting us along our two year
journey. We are so grateful to work
with you and have you part of the
VinTank family.
 *
*State of New Hampshire
And a special nod to

Who spend their money to support our

efforts to research and manufacture
these reports.
We’ve been busy.
We have produced:
We have produced:
2 Major Reports
We are here, We are HERE, WE ARE HERE:
The State of Wine Industry Social Media

A report that explains the state and impact of social

media within the industry. This “herculean labor of
love” was intended to introduce and inform the wine
world on the upcoming business trends within digital
media, breaking down the Who’s, the What’s and
the Who Cares free for the industry.

Check it out: http://bit.ly/fZoMe5

We have produced:
2 Major Reports
Wine on the iPhone: What’s the Best App?

A summary and analysis on all the relevant iPhone

applications for the wine industry. We searched
and pulled together applications and split them
into categories based on their capabilities,
functionality, overall performance and impact on
both the market and the consumer.

Check it out: http://bit.ly/ep3yU0

We have produced:
12 Pulse Reports
Our views on new technologies that announce
themselves to the wine industry. We do our Pulse
Reports from a winery or consumer-centric
perspective.

Check them out: http://bit.ly/iimb1U

We have produced:
Over 25 Blog Posts
Sharing our thoughts on wine and tech.
Including 3 videos from our UNFILTERED series.
You can expect this to exponentially grow in our
content output in 2011.

Check these out:

Twitter voices that influence our thinking...

“Inherit the Wind”- The real interview with Craig Wolf

Is Snooth scraping data from CellarTracker?

We have produced:
Unfiltered Videos
Unfiltered #1 with Unfiltered #2 with
Evan Dawson Rob McMillan
WHAM News Anchor Founder of the SVB WIne Division
and Editor of the
NewYorkCorkReport.com

Watch Video Watch Video

Unfiltered #3 with Unfiltered #4 with

Craig Wolfe Barry Schuler
former CEO of AOL and owner of
WSWA President
Meteor Vineyards

Watch Video Watch Video

 We will produce:
Be on the Lookout
We will be generating more content including:

Frequent blog posts and Pulse Reports on topics we

see that are important to the industry and make a
technological impact. We have also confirmed the
following for our Unfiltered Video Series:
Jennifer Leggio Aaron Strout Meg Maker
Michael Brito Jancis Robinson Randall Grahm
and more....
All FREE to help wineries
and consumers
understand the
intersection between
wine and digital.
 We also have mad love for
other firms who create or
aggregate FREE content
and insight to help wineries.

paulrickett.wordpress.com
 We also have mad love for
other firms who create or
aggregate FREE content
and insight to help wineries.

paulrickett.wordpress.com
Speaking of free
love,
The only social media monitoring
service tailored EXCLUSIVELY for
the wine industry.
✓ Measured over 128 million conversations
to distill to 13 million wine conversations
✓ Profiled over 3 million online wine
consumers
✓ FREE if you participate in
yourwineyourway.com
✓ Revenue model – yearly subscriptions or
fees for cleaning wine data
✓ Measured over x conversations to
distill to y wine conversations
✓ Profiled over 3 million online wine
consumers
✓ FREE if you participate in
yourwineyourway.com
✓ Revenue model – yearly subscriptions
or fees for cleaning wine data
 Created
✓ Measured by Cruvee
over x conversations to

✓
for wine companies,
distill to y wine conversations
Profiled over 3 million online wine
enabling
consumers brand control.
✓ FREE if you participate in
yourwineyourway.com
✓ Revenue model – yearly subscriptions
or fees for cleaning wine data
Wineries can enter their
data for FREE and it
syndicates to 50 partners
(and growing) with an
aggregate user base of 1.4
million wine consumers.
One place, fifty outlets.
ANY wine tech company can tap
into the API for FREE and without the
requirement to send traffic back to
Cruvee.
Why do they do that?
It helps wine tech companies
focus on building BETTER
software and services to help
wineries SUCCEED online
Why do they do that?
Why do they do that?
What’s in it for me?
Serves as a free data portal for wineries to
share normalized information and allows
wineries to leverage this rich tool at no cost.

Added bonus: Data in the

platform can also be used to
enter multiple wine
competitions without having to
fill out their competition forms.
Own your message.
Save administration
time. Present your
product properly and
efficiently on the
internet.
But that’s not all. Cruvee
has also given us...
Turn Fans into Customers
Turn Fans into Customers
Wineries can leverage
yourwineyourway.com for themselves.

Easy as 1.2.3.
1. Put your wines in yourwineyourway.com
2. Add the FREE Facebook app that adds a
wines tab to your winery’s Facebook
Fanpage with links directly to your site
3. Turn your Fans into Customers
We know crowds.
 e s .
Tr ib

We know crowds.
 e s .
Trib
ste
Ta
 e s .
Tri b
s te
Ta
The 100 point system is easy to understand but flawed. Out of the 250K
+ wines produced annually throughout the world, only 30K-40K are
professionally reviewed.

Recommendation is the #1 catalyst for wine buying.

People adhere to Taste Tribes.

Bloggers aggregate wine lovers that
match their “Taste Tribe.”
Why not try Badges?

A rating system that is Binary (like it or don’t).

Either the wine earns a badge based upon reviewers’

criteria, or the wine doesn’t, creating a taste taxonomy
that recognizes that we taste differently.

Then syndicate these notes and “digital neckers” for FREE to

help give people meaningful recommendations and help
e-tailers convert sales through digital merchandising of
reviews. Psst – wineries can use this on their sites TOO!
 Why will it work?

The badge data is syndicated (for FREE)

through digital distribution channels to
anyone who wants to receive and use it.

Distribution is the key to change.

Here are the pioneer bloggers who are

leading the Badge initiative. Feel free to
submit your wines to them.
Joe Roberts (aka 1 wine dude)
http://www.1winedude.com/
 Ward Kadel (aka- Dr. Xeno)
http://www.winelog.net/blogs/drxeno/
 Steve Paulo
(aka Notes from the Cellar)
http://notesfromthecellar.com/
 “Desperate Times Call
for Desperate Measures”
- Franklin Roosevelt
“A Social Experiment”
Social Commerce Experiment

Predatory Flash Sale sites were asking

wineries to offer deep discounts and
pay extraordinary fees while only
presenting the highest rated wines.

So we asked:
Can a major social network be used
for social commerce?
Facebook released its
new upgraded
groups!
Thus was born Deals from the
Vines – A Facebook group that
allows ANY winery to present its
wines for sale to the group with
NO FEES.
A special thank you to our partner wineries
that allow us to experiment and share the
efforts and learnings with the entire industry.
Here’s where to participate:
http://on.fb.me/ec7MzM
Here’s what we
learned:
http://bit.ly/gCwpwh
 to all the wine
companies that
have participated in
this experiment!
Wine Tasting (www.winetasting.com) Israeli Wine Direct (www.israeliwinedirect.com)
Bolen Family Estates (www.bolenlegacy.com) Cornerstone Cellars (www.cornerstonecellars.com)
Modus Operandi (www.moduswines.com) Ampelos Cellars (www.ampeloscellars.com)
James David Cellars (www.jamesdavidcellars.com) Charnu Winery (www.charnuwinery.com)
Marita's Vineyards (www.maritasvineyard.com) Marquee Selections (www.marquee.com)
Passaggio (www.passaggiowines.com) Ortman Family Vineyards (www.ortmanwines.com)
Twisted Oak (www.twistedoak.com) JV Wine and Spirits (www.jvwine.com)
Hanzell Vineyards (www.hanzell.com) Robert Keenan Winery (www.keenanwinery.com)
Bonny Doon Vineyards (www.bonnydoonvineyard.com) Foris Vineyards (www.foriswine.com)
 “The e a ls
Co Be d
me st I e
Alo
de
aT wi
n ay
T im o e n m
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In A
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with the nsumer ew rout
ir Deals (DTC) su e on
from the perhigh
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Group ” Vines o
n Faceb
ook

- Dr. Xen
o

Here’s hoping you participate

in this FREE service.
Law and Order
HR 5034 &Craig Wolf
HR 5034 is the first real
threat to direct shipping
we’ve seen since 2005.

VinTank stands for

wineries. VinTank stands
for direct shipping. We
decided to challenge
the issue head on (the
WSWA) in a fun and
intelligent way.
Thus we made Craig Wolf a muppet, used his quotes, and challenged his logic:
http://www.vintank.com/2010/11/unfiltered-3-craig-wolf-and-hr5034/

Craig Wolf enjoyed the “Tosh 2.0” version of his perspective and granted us a
real interview to discuss the issue. The transcript can be found here and is
INCREDIBLY important to read if direct shipping is at all important to you: http://
www.vintank.com/2011/01/inherit-the-wind-the-real-interview-with-craig-wolf/
Constructive
Discourse
& Revelation
A great summary of the article by Eric Arnold can be found here:
http://bit.ly/fOdWSB
PS – one of the most
interesting disclosures was
the potential partnership
between Shipcompliant
and the WSWA which
raised more questions than
answers: http://bit.ly/hnrsjj
Transparency on the web
VinTank challenged the
data Snooth represented
as facts with the intention
to surface the reality of
#’s that affect
advertising rates, data
usage, and more with
the intention to give
wineries better context
for making business
decisions.
Our post here: http://
bit.ly/et4t6P - what we
discovered was that the
math didn’t add up and
data that wineries gave
Snooth was being used
to increase their SEO to
outrank or rank incredibly
high up in search results
with messaging that is
not an accurate
representation of the SEO
results.
As a result of the exercise
we uncovered a huge
problem with
authenticity too: wine
tech pioneer, Eric LeVine,
and his renowned site,
CellarTracker, appeared
to be scraped to power
Snooth’s database:
http://bit.ly/gkeZla
The new web is about TRUE

transparency
Sneak Peek
Sneak peek

The following slides

represent cool projects
that are coming down
the pipeline from
VinTank. Things that
excite us to the n’th
degree.
Share the LOVE
Owners – two African-
American women, one
millennial, one Gen X, first
CarboNZero winery in the
world, presenting New Zealand
Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling
for everyday enjoyment.
Launching an integrated
campaign with an iPhone app
(Share the Love) and
Facebook/Twitter marketing
focus that will create a true
“pay it forward” campaign.
Do good deeds, earn rewards.
 First ever augmented
reality launch for a wine.

Random do-gooders will have the

eco.love owners show up at their door
with a gift of wine and a flipcam to
share and celebrate their good deeds.
A lot of small deeds add
up to big changes. Why
don’t you share the love?
iPhone App Report 2.0
iPhone App 2.0 OVERLOAD
We analyzed over 450 iPhone wine
related apps that add up to over
$884.19

Believe us, there’s an app for that...

PalatePress.com will publish our

evaluation...be on the look out for it!
 Our Next Big Report!
It will come...It will COME...IT
WILL COME!
Tentatively titled Crash!
The report about the intersection of wine and digital
will include:

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Tentatively titled Crash!
The report about the intersection of wine and digital

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Social Gaming
Engagement through
Social Gaming for wine?
The new EVOLUTION

There existed a huge hole in

execution of quality customer
engagement through digital.
We believe in social gaming
COMING as a new, relevant and
improved type of
APRIL 2011 engagement.
Wine tasting note, social, and
decision support platforms
were looking for better ways
to service wine companies.
VinPass is the first
CROSS PLATFORM
social game that
engages and
rewards consumers
for tasting and
recording their
wine experience.
 s
ter
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2011 Predictions
Part of what we do is look
forward to what is next in the

Some insight
wine/tech ecosphere. The
challenges with making
statements about the future of
wine and tech is our industry’s
very slow adoption rate.
So we often have to temper
trends affecting other
segments online with what we
think is possible in the wine
industry.
Here is what we think is in store
for 2011 for wine.
E-commerce
The recession forced many wineries to rethink their strategies
as related to channel focus. Many have shifted to prioritizing
DTC business, with e-commerce of highest value.
Wine e-commerce is becoming easier due to the interstate
challenges settling down, platform sophistication, and
market understanding.
Wine e-commerce provides the HIGHEST return towards
EBITDA vs. any other direct channel.
The second sale from a consumer after they return home is
far more important than the first sale at the winery.
Wine e-commerce is the fastest growing DTC channel for
wineries.
 Prediction!

This focus will continue to grow and many wineries, even the
largest enterprise wineries, will see tremendous growth in the
channel and will reinvest for greater returns. Expect better
customer service, more innovative marketing and promotional
activities, and interesting spins on winery direct e-commerce.
Our W i sh ...

A true and legal marketing

agent for wineries like an
Expedia for wine.
Social Media
“A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have
never met a miserly wine lover.”
- Clifton Fadiman
 sa e
to w
y?
g re
in t a
try ha

Wine is Social
“A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have
W

never met a miserly wine lover.”

- Clifton Fadiman

There is no stopping the tsunami that is social

media. Our industry is one of the most active
as a percentage of the whole in social media.
 Evan Chris
Daw Carfi
son
Chris
Joe Edwards Catherine
Meg Barry Davis
n
Roberts Aaro Schuler Hardy
Maker t
Strou Brian Wallace
Solis

There are many, many, many

great thought leaders
participating in helping
educate wineries.
Prediction! 50% of US wineries (3000+) will
be participating in social media
in some capacity (blogs, Twitter,
Facebook, Linkedin, other).

10% of US wineries (600+) will

become proficient in 2011 in
leveraging the medium for
increased branding, customer
engagement, customer service,
customer acquisition, PR, and
more.

0.25% (15) will start basic SCRM

(Social CRM).
 Our W i sh ...

Wine-focused social platforms

will build better winery
engagement tools so wineries
can “fish where the fish are.”
Flash Sales
Flash sites dominated
our psyche in 2009
and 2010.
 Social Commerce
and “Flash in the Pan”

Several were incredibly honest and legitimate outlets for overstocked inventories,
including:

Other emerging outlets seem promising: gilt.com, ruelala.com and lot18.com.

The excess of super-scoring wines (over 90 by any of the major publications) is drying
up. The 4 + 3 will capture the lion’s share of any wine inventory in this segment of the
wine business.
The American consumer has drastically changed buying habits and will perpetuate
services like this. How do Flash sales build image in a luxury category?
Prediction:
The implosion of wine flash sales will start in 2011.
Some companies will emerge just to service this
new channel (like http://www.preston-layne.com/
& http://www.newmanwineandspirits.com/).
Our Wish...

We hope that whatever models companies

bring, they are not winery punitive models like
many of the predatory flash sale sites of the
last two years.
Social Commerce
Social Commerce
Groupon, livingsocial.com and
buywithme.com are just a few.
Group buying has started and now
that the genie is out of the bottle,
how will commerce and social
intersect?

-photo courtesy redant.com

We will see a wine social commerce platform
emerge in 2011. Some wineries might even
experiment with it (kudos to Chateau
Montelena here for trying a version of it -
http://bit.ly/fvidrU)
Mobile...Mobile...Mobile
 o u r
i n y 2011, thanks to the incredible

e
adoption and selection of

i n e t ! smart phones, the notion of

W c k mobile, mobile, mobile will

Po
finally become a reality for the
wine industry.

There are now over 450 wine

apps (or apps that have wine
features) across all mobile
platforms. Some of our
favorites are:

HelloVino Nat Cor.kz Eco.love

Decants

WS
Corkbin RedWhite Vintage Drync
Boston Charts
 c ti on
red i
P
o s tly e i f
e n m l i t t l
e b e i d e d i l l
h a v p r o v a t w
p p s a n d 1 1 t h y ) .
i l e a i n g In 2 0 o n e
Mo b r fa c i e s . k e m
u m e i n e r m a i a l i n
c o n s t o w d t o s o c
a l u e n e e o re
n y v t h e y e m
a c k , c o m
( h e i l l b e
t u r n p s w
e a p
W i n
0 1 1 .
2
 .
Wishing that
Apple and other
h . .
is
App stores would

W
stop featuring
useless wine apps
and giving poor
ur
customer
experience to O
consumers who
choose to
download them!
Label Image Recognition
Image Recognition
Imagine a world where you
can take a pic of a label
and it returns information
about the wine. Sounds like
science fiction? Almost.
The industry doesn’t use UPC
codes well – either we don’t
change from vintage to
vintage or we don’t include
them at all.
Sorting through images is
ridiculously HARD.

y e t to
e ha s
o r w in d
a t a f d a n
Th e d a l iz e
n o r m .
be a n i ze d
org
A Good Start...

We predict that you will see wine label scanning tools get to
65% in 2011. Wine apps are sick of dirty data or data that are
only used to drive traffic to other peoples sites. Expect to see
more attention on wine data from the tech sector in 2011.
Our Wish...

That wineries would understand the importance of

organizing their wine data for success of their brand
online. This will help when image recognition
becomes more prevalent.
QR Codes
QR Codes
Yes, I really work!

Quick Response (QR) codes

are two dimensional matrix
barcodes that allow different
types of data to be
embedded within them. The
most common use is to embed
a URL that can be resolved
and loaded in a web browser
when the code is scanned.
 The proliferation of smart
phones equipped with cameras
and applications capable of
scanning and interpreting the

data within QR codes is driving

the adoption .
QR codes are a tool,
not a strategy!
QR codes will gain a
significant foothold in the
wine industry in 2011 with
many wineries printing
them on back labels and
marketing materials.

However, they should be

seen as a least-common-
denominator solution and
just one part of an overall
strategy for connecting
consumers in the
physical/product world
with their digital brand
experience.
Wineries must carefully consider their
implementation of QR codes, especially when
printing them on labels, since they become a
permanent part of their packaging and ultimately
reflect back on their brand. Since wine is a long tail
product, wineries should ensure that they have
control over the QR code resolution process.
Social Gaming (yes again)
Social Gaming Platforms
?
lle ?
vi gr
rm vn
Fa Sc
of e?
d ar
ar u
q
He rs
u
Fo
Well if you haven’t, here are a few stats
that might blow your mind:
Still think it’s a
FAD?
In the words of Brian Solis:

We think it’s far from a fad, it is

actually a new form of engagement
that has yet to enter the wine
category.
Prediction
The social gaming
outlets will improve the
level of engagement
opportunities wineries
will have with their
consumers as well as
give a clear indication
of consumer purchasing
patterns. This will all start
with the launch of the
first social game for our
industry, VinPass.
 Our Wish...

That wineries would ignore the

word “game” and translate it
to “engagement marketing.”
Critics Embrace Digital
 VS.

For some reason over the last two years

there has been a giant rift between
traditional wine critics and bloggers (eg -
http://bit.ly/dZoiWm)
Creating content and distributing
it is cheaper than ever errr...
actually make that FREE.
The distinction between blogger
and traditional media becomes
more blurry every day.
Many professional writers have
ignored the power of digital.
The role of a professional writer is
changing from paid content
creator to audience aggregator,
reader engagement, content
distribution strategist, free
content creator, marketer, digital
connoisseur.
Professional critics embrace digital

Some key professional writers have

understood that the marriage of
digital and treating bloggers not
as a competitors but as partners
elevates their content awareness
and personal brand.
 Be g
e n
st
th mo
A

Eric Arnold Cyril Penn

Jancis Robinson Leslie Sbroco Jon Bonne Gary Vaynerchuk

Natalie Maclean Lewis Perdue Steve Heimoff Bill Daley

Pre
ictio
n

In 2011 you will see the emergence of professional

wine writers entering the digital space. The ones that
take the time to understand digital will elevate in mass
awareness. The ones who don’t will be inundated by
what they call “mob mentality” and constant barrage
of public criticism that will chip away at their credibility
to this and the next generation of wine consumers.
Our Wish...

Would love to see innovative

collaboration between professional
wine writers, wine bloggers and old
media publications.
Digital Reviews
Out with the
old....reviews that is!
Ok – yes, the big boys dominate.
Yes, key critics have been the
gate keepers to wine
recommendations.
And yes, the internet, especially
with social media, is beginning
to level the playing field and
introduce new ways to
recommend wine.
 In with the new...types of reviews
The Facebook “Like”
function is a game
changer in more ways
than this one slide can
demonstrate.

We predict more
etailers and online
platforms will start
using new systems for
recommending wine.

3 of the most influential review sites!

Our wish...
More wineries and wine retailers will start
using the “like” buttons and CellarTracker
scores.
Badges will get their time in the limelight
and that etailers and other wine sites see
this as an opportunity to leverage tech to
help consumers.
Curated Content
Old media was the gate keeper to the
content presented to you. Now your
friends/network are the presenters of
content on a daily basis.
“Everyone is a media outlet.”
-Clay Shirky
Twitter is a “news platform” - http://bit.ly/hJDxwx

There is often too much content, so the emergence of new

types of platforms for people to “organize and aggregate”
content for their friends/networks (paper.li, http://bit.ly/gCGZQZ,
or to make the stream of content easier to read are emerging,
like:

Flipboard Flud
 Even in our own
industry we have
strong content
curation.

Blend of content curation...

and creation.
Even mobile applications
procure content from key
bloggers and feature it in their
platforms.
Prediction

There will be a new push in content curation

for wine sites in 2011 due to the flood of wine
information on the internet.
Our Wish...
We hope to see companies like Flud and Flipboard add
wine as a major category. Imagine them aggregating all
wine tweets?
We REALLY hope to see them make business development
deals with super content manufacturers like Jancis
Robinson, Natalie Maclean, and CellarTracker.com.
We would also love to see respected wine celebrities
aggregate and curate content. Imagine “Best Wine
blogs and tweets by Jancis Robinson” or the Institute of
Masters of Wine aggregating all content from students of
the MW program.
CRM
 Customer Relationship
Management has been a
mythical dream to the wine
industry.
The wine industry has one of the most complicated CRM
needs due to the diverse nature and needs of the
channels it services (ecom, wine club, telephone, tasting
room, direct to trade, traditional 3-tier).
The industry is gated by disparate systems where the
lowest common denominator is legacy systems. Even
with the most sophisticated CRM tool (e.g.
Salesforce.com), it continues to be gated by the systems
it needs to integrate.
Currently CRM in our industry is loosely described as
“identify consumers, segment, send an email, telemarket
or send a mail offering.”
Prediction
CRM will actually start
to materialize in 2011
and the industry will
begin leveraging it
for the benefit of DTC
sales.
Our Wish...

Instead of business intelligence CRM we

dream of a wine world that has an
actionable CRM.
IMAGINE..
...a world where a wine club member calls, and
you know: how long they have been a member,
their LTV, their preferences, their RFM, and more to
extend quality service.
IMAGINE..
...that data leveraged by an e-commerce platform
presents better offers to club members and recent
visitors.

...the new world of SCRM (Social CRM) and the

ability to service customers based upon more
than buying history but also on conversations.
There is much more to this story...

But 2011 will reveal more to us as technology

matures and our industry uses it and gains real
learnings. We are lucky to be part of this journey.
 Thank you!
VinTank | info@vintank.com| www.vintank.com