“Bordeaux Tomorrow” – A wine region brings itself up to date via iPhone App

With the Bordeaux App, users from Shanghai to New York will be able to obtain further information by taking a picture of any Bordeaux wine label. The iPhone identifies the photographed label and provides information about the wine, the grape variety and the appellation. Links to dates, various wine events and recommendations concerning restaurants in the region are included.

“We keep hearing that Bordeaux wines are hard to understand and that the labels are old-fashioned,” says Christophe Chateau of the CIVB. “By launching the app, we aim at informing customers best possible, and thus, we hope to boost sales further.”

Over 9.000 wine estates are encouraged to provide information. Already 15.000, maybe 20.000 wines are supposed to be filled in and ready for download at the start of the Bordeaux App. “We think that we can be ready by October and can provide wine data of at least 80 percent of the producers,” says Chateau. “The wine estates have to gather and edit all the necessary data – it only takes us 5 to 10 minutes to upload the information, which means that we have to work hard despite vacation in August and the approaching harvest in September.”

The CIVB iPhone App is closely connected to the new strategy “Bordeaux Tomorrow – The Reconquest”, which wants to eliminate over 100 million liters of cheap plonk produced each year, instead it wants to help producers of cheap wines to make more quality wines, which make Bordeaux more fun and which also wants to introduce a simplified, consumer-friendly labeling system for wines.

“We would like to regain lost consumers,” says Georges Haushalter, wine merchant and CIVB president. “Cheap wines do not meet the claim and reputation of Bordeaux. However, not all estates have to produce expensive wines. With the help of experts, the larger majority of Bordeaux winemakers can improve the quality of their “Basic” wines, which retails for €3 to €8.” (aw.yoopress)