Wineries and viticulturists have integrated software into their day-to-day operations to save time and streamline workflow. Choosing the best solution from among the many options can be challenging, if not daunting. Key considerations include the size of your winery or vineyard, whether you want a winemaking, viticultural or vineyard-to-bottle solution, the level of customer support you need, and of course, your budget.
Googling all options can add to the confusion and often misses the best solution for you. Relying on word of mouth alone can mean finding a solution that’s perfect for your friend’s business but not for yours. As a result, making a decision can become overwhelming for many. Yet, with software’s rapid pace of innovation, it is more important than ever to take advantage of its expanding benefits.
“There is a digital shift in how both wineries and viticulturists utilize software,” says Clement Chivite, General Manager of Process2Wine North America. “Mobile capabilities allow winemakers and vineyard managers to use a system to track and recall operations in the vineyard and the cellar. This move toward technology as a convenience lets those adopting it lean more into precision viticulture and precision winemaking.”
Such precision is at the heart of Process2Wine’s software. Founder and CEO Alain Sutre started from the premise that ‘better grapes make better wine’ when he developed the precision viticulture module and expanded it with the precision winemaking module. His strategy was to make robust functionality available to vineyard management companies and wineries at a lower cost than other wine production and vineyard management software makers.
If you are feeling uncertain about which software is best for you, Process2Wine has an eminently practical way to find out. It offers freemium versions of its two different and distinct modules — the Vineyard Management module (available now) and Winery Management module (available this Spring) — to let winemakers and viticulturists test-run the solutions.
The freemium version of the Vineyard Management module provides Process2Wine’s industry-best advanced mapping tool, where you can capture the entire history of each block and access the data in real-time from anywhere on your mobile smartphone or tablet. The powerful freemium version lets you manage all your vineyard tasks and daily work orders and add geo-located notes on weather conditions, trellis repair, irrigation and all vineyard activities.
Once you’ve experienced the ease of use and value-added with Process2Wine’s software, it’s easy to step up from the freemium version to the standard version. Here you can track the cost of vineyard supplies, labor, overhead and operating expenses associated with every task. You can also access customized reporting like generating maturity control or pesticide use reports, constructing yield summaries or crop estimates based on cluster counts or weights, and creating pruning or harvest protocols by block or row.
Process2Wine’s upcoming freemium version of its Winery Management module includes its innovative interactive mapping system that lets you visually review a simple map of your tanks and barrels in the same order and rows as in your cellar. A color-coded capacity gauge shows how full each container is and the type of wine it holds. Simply click on a tank to drill down to more details, including fermentation status, the history of chemicals used, sanitation or cleaning maintenance, transfers, additions, blending, racking, filter and fining, aging, and so much more. The real-time, customizable BI reporting tool, TTB report generation and Cost Tracking will be accessible when you move from the freemium version to the standard winery management version.
“Whether you are a grower with low production or a vineyard management company,” says Erik Johansen, Business Developer at Process2Wine, “you can focus on precision viticulture with our Vineyard Management module that lets you send work orders directly from the vineyard. Wineries of all sizes can use the Winery Management module to manage their inventory, costing and TTB reporting, or use both modules to fit their needs. Process2Wine will include the vineyard module for free for users of the Winery Management module with up to 20 acres of vineyard.”
Process2Wine is dedicating 2022 to developing the partnerships and integrations that will bring everything and everyone under one umbrella, including offering new modules and add-ons to fit each customer’s needs.
One of these new modules, also available this Spring, is the Work Flow Management module, which brings greater efficiency to the winemaker by helping them get organized, save time and avoid record-keeping mistakes.
“It’s like the whiteboard reimagined,” says Chivite. “Especially during crush, when you have more interns, this tool will give you better organization and the ability to direct more people by assigning tasks in advance and checking the workflow on your mobile to ensure they’ve completed each task.”
When cellar hands walk into the winery in the morning, they can see a list of their assigned responsibilities and work down the list systematically, checking them off as they go. Not directing each worker’s tasks one-by-one frees up the winemaker’s valuable time and gets the work done more efficiently.
To get an inside look at the intuitive traceability software in the Vineyard Management module, go to process2wine.com to connect to the freemium version. Clement and Erik also look forward to showcasing the Process2Wine Vineyard Management software module, the Winery Management software module and the Winery Work Flow Management software module on a demo or in person at the Unified Symposium, Booth #1116. Cheers!
