Controlled by producers: Interview to David Gluzman
Selling wine online seems a simple thing, but it doesn’t. Producers put their wines into the database and wait, for a long o short time depends to ability of platform. But, how can they control informations about them?
A nice solution is the Global Wine Database, a great database where producers can input informations about their wines, than can be used via API for third part platforms or online sales.
David Gluzman (@D4V) is the founder and president of WineCollective, a famous wine club in Canada, and of BlackSquare Inc. He’s the president of both companies.
He developed Blackboxx, a Software as a service e-commerce platform for the wine industry. GWDB is a tool for wineries, a Digital Asset Management to store information their winery, and all the wines they produce (including previous vintages).
You can upload an unlimited amount of digital assets to GWDB and stay organized while keeping all your information in the cloud. Some of their clients use both to be be more organized and increase efficiencies.
I’ve interviewed David for you.
The Digital Wine: Hi David, thank you to stay here. Give to TDW’s readers a 10 rows biography of Global Wine Database: when it born, who are founders, its purpose
David Gluzman: There are 10s of thousands of wineries in the world, make sure the world knows about you. GWDB helps source information for government, importers, media, retailers and the latest apps. It’s free to list your winery, brands and wines on the Global Wine Database.
Any third party app that is integrated with GWDB is automatically updated with the most recent information directly from the winery. New vintage? New Bottle shots? New tasting notes? Automatic.
Since launching in mid 2017 in beta we’ve had exceptional traction world wide. We’ve launched the first (in partnership with the Canadian Vintners Association) the largest database of Canadian wineries & wines, www.wine411.ca.
Since then wineries from around the world are requesting access to update their winery and wine information.We’ve also had an overwhelming amount of third party developers wanting to use the GWDB API. We are currently working with select early access partners to use the GWDB API and are rolling out access progressively throughout 2017.
TDW: Canada it isn’t the first place people think when they talk about wine, but you have many wineries in your country. What is the most produced wine? Where?
DG: Over 700 Wineries, over 5000 wines, and just over 100 varieties of grapes are grown in Canada. The largest regions are Ontario and British Columbia. You can explore a bunch of the information yourself at www.wine411.ca
TDW: How many wineries there are in your db?
DG: GWDB is a quality over quantity database where all the data exclusively comes from the producers themselves. Keeping that in mind we are working diligently to onboard as many wineries & regions as possible.
Having said that we have over 15,000 wineries in GWDB today and it’s growing daily.
New vintage? New technical notes! Keep track of every vintage you produce, easily and quickly. Keep everyone in your organization on the same page in regards to what your winery is producing.
TDW: What technology do you use?
DG: Built from the ground up in the last 12 months using RoR and the latest cloud infrastructure, while leveraging the institutional knowledge from building technology in the wine industry since 2009. The Global Wine Database API is currently available in Beta and follows the JSON API 1.0 spec.
TDW: The db is in beta-version, have you already any customer to test your features? If yes, who are they?
DG: We’ve been working several different organizations and are in continued discussion with new partners as we speak: Canadian Vintners Association, Institute of Masters of Wine, Liv-Ex and several others.
TDW: DTC is the great goal for many wineries. How Canadian wine lovers appreciate it, respect to buy at wine shop?
DG: DTC is the fastest growing segment year over year globally. Checkout the recent publication from Sovos talking about the american market it’s fascinating.
TDW: I’ve seen the Wine411 website, whom you are partner of. Online DTC doesn’t eliminate intermediation, but substitute it. Do you think this is the new frontier of wine sales?
DG: Most brands need to focus on finding or converting their biggest fans. Most relationships start after a real world vivitation to the winery, and it’s about harnessing a long term relationship with them for years to come. DTC and WineClubs are a great way to engage your biggest fans.
TDW: Does GWDB work only in Canada?
DG: It’s global, however we have been focusing mostrly on New World Wine regions as a priority.
TDW: Data are the new gold of the XXI century, and technology make them available for all they want. Do you use your db for marketing search, too?
DG: We try and expose interesting information for the industry at large, however many universities around the world are pulling information directly from GWDB to make their own insights and reports.
TDW: Last question for you. What would you say to Italian wineries, if one of them wanted to be in your dB?
DG: Ciao! Would you like the rest of the world to know more about your wines? Make sure you put together all your information into GWDB, it’s free and easy.
Well, the David’s words was very interesting, they demonstrate a really passion for wine and to make the consumer more aware with wine they love. I’d like if others database, if any, could link data to have a really giant wine database.
For now, you can use GWDB.
As David says, it’s free and easy.
Originally published at www.thedigitalwine.com on February 13, 2018.
