In the past few years, journalists have been passive aggressively blaming millennials for killing everything from cereal to chain restaurants to department stores.  Wine may be just out of reach of money conscious millennials. Due to beer and liquor being cheaper on a per serving basis, they were the biggest competitors to the wine industry breaking through to millennials aged 23 to 38 in 2019. The market for millennials is virtually untapped.

A new app named Winerytale is hoping to connect millennials to wineries who are tech savvy, money conscious and value experiences over material items.  While the app combines augmented reality and artificial intelligence, the concept is quite simple. Users of the app point their smart phone at the label of a wine bottle. If the winery is registered with the app, users will be able to tap into winery tour videos, photos, food pairing suggestions, and tasting notes.  Wineries are also able to list stockists and their social media accounts. An integrated “fanwall” is hashtag driven and presents images of each winery’s biggest fans. Features that include self-translating wine bottles for foreign language users will be added in 2020.

More videos are available on their media page.

Similar apps exist for beer, like Untappd.  Untappd users rate and make notes on beers they try.  Location services allow to find the beer for sale in the consumer’s area.  These apps have wide engagement and popularity amongst beer enthusiasts around the world.

Winerytale, though, stands out with its augmented reality. While some wineries like 19 Crimes and Treasury Wine Estates have already successfully adapted the AR technology, Winerytale hopes to be Grand Central for forward thinking millennials and savvy smart phone users who would like the experience of a virtual winery tour to any winery around the world in one app. The app already has over 500 participating wineries.

While many wineries may not have the budget of 19 Crimes (Treasury Wine Estates) and Walking Dead Wines (Last Wine Co.), adding your winery to the Winerytale App is free. According to the app’s creators, if you can update your business’ Facebook page, you use their app. The app provides a dashboard on its website to add photos, video and text. Potential benefits include bigger brand recognition and sales. Location services can alert out of town wine drinkers to stop by for a tour. Other price points in the app offer extra functionality for emerging and well-established brands with a budget for marketing.

Pictured: Last Wine Company’s Walking Dead Cabernet Sauvignon. On the right, the label using the Living Labels app.

The creators of the app are looking to cap the number of wineries to 1000 by the end of February.  Download the app to your smart phone via Google Play or Apple’s App Store.

Author Bio

From Tracy Jong’s high school jobs in local restaurants, collection of spices from the around the world  and pure foodie lifestyle, she was destined to combine her passions and focus her legal skills on the food and beverage industry.  Tracy has devoted the last decade of her quarter century career focused on businesses such as restaurants, bars, liquor stores, breweries, wineries, cideries and distilleries. Broad business and legal experience allows her to be the ideal strategist and consultant to the industry in the unique issues entrepreneurs encounter from cradle to grave, helping these businesses at every stage of their life cycle. She is actively involved in craft beverage branding at every level. Brand clearances and registrations are part of her everyday work but her experience is best leveraged for breweries, cideries and distilleries with advanced protection such as trade dress and design patent brand strategies. She focuses on cost-effective strategies and problem-solving, bringing the typical large firm experience and expertise in the boutique firm style with personalized service and industry focused approach. Connect with her at:   blog, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram. Visit her website at www.TracyJongLawFirm.com.