“What Big Data Can Do for You.”

That was the title of the session earlier this week at the USBevX conference in Washington DC, when I presented Enolytics to an audience composed largely of East Coast wineries and distributors.

It was a very cool group of people and, having grown up in rural Pennsylvania myself, I felt immediately at home with the mix of participants and speakers. I enjoyed the conference also because of the smaller scale of things here, and because of the earnestness with which the winemakers, owners, staff, and families approach their work.

Big data is probably not top of mind for most of them, but I valued the opportunity to demonstrate what it could mean for their businesses.

So my approach to the presentation was to start at a broader level and become increasingly granular and relevant to this East Coast audience, thanks to queries completed by Vivino, a data partner with more than 23 million downloads of their app. [A previous post features a Q&A with CMO Stephen Favrot.]

We looked at wines from Virginia, New York, and Long Island in particular, and how consumers engage with them. A few takeaways:

• Consumer interest in wines from these areas is on a serious upswing, showing an 80% to 90% increase in registered users year over year.
• Consumer ratings of wines from Virginia and New York are relatively high, as in, the highest they’ve ever been.
• Consumers rate Virginia wines at an average of 3.8 points out of 5.
• Consumers rate Long Island wines at an average of 3.81 points out of 5.
• In 2016, wines from Long Island saw a 33% increase in scans.
• Virginia wines saw a 35% increase in scans over the same period.
• There was a 50% increase in scan activity in 2015-2016.

Knowing this, even though it only scratches the surface of what’s possible to know, you can start to envision the applications for producers in the audience. Here are three examples.

1. Let’s say you’re an established winery in Virginia. You can learn how your brand is perceived by consumers where your wines are sold, and you can also learn how wines of your competitive set are perceived.
2. Let’s say you’re a trade organization in New York state. You can learn about consumer behavior around your wines in the top ten performing markets where your wines are sold, and you can also learn about an additional ten markets where consumers are expressing interest.
3. Let’s say you’re a new winery in Maryland. You can learn about heatmaps of interest, within a geographical radius you define, of the varietals and styles you’ll need to be marketing.

How do these examples sound to you? Do they tip off any ideas? I’d be very glad to hear.

Thank you, as always, for reading --