Point. click. Cabernet. Updated winery software packages

Wines & Vines, Sept, 2003 by Rick Broida

Nestled in the santa cruz mountains overlooking Silicon Valley, Cinnabar Winery spans 27 acres and produce 15,000 cases of Cabernet, Chardonnay and Pinot noir annually. In the 20 years since its first vines went in the ground, Cinnabar managed its operations with little more than "a few Excel spreadsheets and pieces of paper in folders and notebooks," says general manager Suzanne Frontz.

That's about to change, however, now that Cinnabar has adopted Conformia WinePRO 2.0. The software suite, introduced in June, 2003, manages every aspect of winemaking and production. "From vine to bottle," Frontz laughs, quoting Conformia's marketing materials. She has good reason to be excited--WinePRO is going to supplant Cinnabar' s disparate spreadsheets and paper-based records with a centralized system, one that promises not only crackerjack organization, but also a kind of company archive. "For the first time, we'll have our winemaking history in one place," Frontz says. "There will be, in essence, a family album of Cinnabar Winery and a preservation of our intellectual property."

Welcome to the 21 st-century winery. indeed, if you've been relying on ledgers and luck for managing your operation, it may be time to consider a more high-tech approach. Modern winery and vineyard software offers soup-to-nuts (make that soup-to-grapes) management, everything from tank tracking to blend analysis to help preparing 702s.

The latter feature was a major selling point for Bill Murphy, owner of Clos LaChance in San Martin, Calif. "I would much rather have my winemaker down in the cellar, testing new blends or talking to customers than filling out forms," Murphy says. "(702s) are a time-consuming administrative task. The software cuts down the amount of time he spends doing that."

Murphy, a Silicon Valley veteran, believes products like WinePRO are long overdue. "A lot of the processes that are in the wine business are technologically deprived," he notes. Now that he's able to collect data at every step of every process, he's confident Clos LaChance will become more efficient and reduce costs. At the same time, he says, the quality of his product will improve. "By having all this information on an ongoing basis, we know exactly what's going on in the winery."

One side benefit is a happier winemaker, Murphy adds. "The wine crush is a 24/7 process, which normally requires a winemaker to be on call almost around the clock. Now, he can access the system when he's on the road or at home. He doesn't have to be here 24/7. He can keep track of things, issue work orders, and so on--all from home."

That's because WinePRO is a Web-based product, meaning it's accessible from any Internet-connected PC (though you don't necessarily need Internet access to use it). Within that framework, users can examine the status of all tanks and barrels; composition, cost, and analytical properties of a blend and numerous other types of status information. The software employs, security to ensure that information is available only to authorized individuals.

WinePRO is by no means the only winery- and vineyard-management software currently available. Flowmation's Winery Information System, or WIS, offers similar features for mid-to large-size operations: wineries producing more than 100,000 cases per year and vineyards with more than 300 acres.

Prices for the WIS system are determined on an individual basis, based on requirements, size and other variable factors. For planning purposes, Flowmation offers a tiered pricing model, typically $10,000 for small, $30,000 for mid-sized and $50,000 for large-scale operations.

For Dave Carson, winemaker for Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards, WIS's barrel-tracking features alone were worth the price of admission. "(Barrel tracking) would be absolutely impossible without the software," he says. "The computer becomes an integrated part of winemaking as it becomes an integrated part of everyday activity."

That's what they're learning at Tabor Hill Winery, a western Michigan operation that turned to winery software to help manage explosive growth--from 29,000 cases in 2002 to a projected 48,000 in 2004. "I feel like we've been in the Stone Age," admits Mike Merchant, Tabor Hill's winemaker. "We hadn't even been tracking things on a computer at all, which is pretty ridiculous. There's only so much you can do manually and keep on top of it."

Early last summer, the company adopted The Winemaker's Database, a management system that's suitable for wineries producing anywhere from 1,000 cases to tens of millions. Instead of the customized version that's programmed for the specific needs of a particular winery, Merchant was attracted to the standard version, which can be augmented over time with any of two dozen add-on modules. (An example of one of the newest modules: a tank-temperature control system, which enables the user to modify tanks directly from the software.) At press-time, Tabor Hill was still in the process of setting up its first computer and getting started with the software, but Merchant expected to be fully operational in time for the 2003 harvest. "I'm sure we'll run into a few glitches, but you gotta start somewhere."