Nothing new or exciting about it? Wrong! This new app is really innovative and for once it comes from France. It feels good to be able to write about an innovative feature launched by a French company, believe it or not!

Millesima is a Bordeaux “negociant” house founded in 1983 by Patrick Bernard. It is a family owned and run business.  Millesima launched its online store in 1997 and the online sales now account for 40% of the gross turnover. It is present in 11 countries, including the US since 2006 and just opened a branch in Shanghaï.  Their wines come directly from the producers and are stocked in their huge cellars in the heart of Bordeaux.

Since Gerard Spatafora joined the company as Internet Marketing Director 3 years ago, an innovative web marketing strategy was implemented: development of the Internet sales from 5% to 40% of the turnover, rich media with a series of videos to present the properties and their owners or managers run by Frederic Lot, an intense presence on Facebook mostly in French unfortunately, a Twitter account and now an iPhone application for their online store.

Gerard Spatafora and his team strongly believe in the future of the smartphones (IPhone, BlackBerry, Samsung ) as well as  in the future of the mobile Internet.  The keyword for Millesima is: personalization of the relationship. That’s why the app was preferred to a mobile site.  The customer just downloads the application to the smartphone and is master of the game.

On a technical point of view, the app is really outstanding by its features and very much user-friendly:

- Multilingual (6 languages), it provides access to 4000 references and a  stock of over 2,500,000 bottles. The traditional information making up the specification sheets of each product (visual, description, AOC, vintage, format, price, critics marks…) are automatically available.

- History of the orders

- Wish list,  allowing the customer who would postpone his search to save a great deal of time if he wishes to find back the wines added into the cart or into his favorites.

- Works for iPhone, soon on BlackBerry and, if needed, with Samsung.

-it allows a real direct and full purchase, without having to switch from your mobile Iphone or Blackberry to a computer.

Safety and confidentiality are of course primary concerns.  Using a SSL V3 certificate awarded by GlobalSign, the cart is  entirely secured. But it is remarkable that it is a premiere for an online wine store to offer to the web users the full experience of buying from their phone without switching to a web site to complete the transaction.

By offering its customers full services and access through the app to the full site of the country of origin of the consumers, Millesima hopes to gain a more global vision of the specific needs of its customers. This “one-to-one” marketing strategy will provide a better segmentation, therefore a more efficient development of customer’s loyalty.

Of course, the cost of the app was not advertised but anybody involved in technology is aware of the costs. The management considered that 200 new customers a month would make the application profitable – but after how many months?  No information yet. But one clue was provided: the iPhone app of Nespresso brings the company 38,000 euros a day of gross turnover.

And you know what? I wish Millesima and its daring team as much success as Nespresso in this new adventure. They deserve it: in our difficult times and with so many business people being afraid of making the slightest move, it is refreshing to see a medium-size company show such an entrepreneurial spirit.

You know a technology is successful when you start seeing it all over the place. Most of my favorite French wine and food or lifestyle magazines now have an iPhone app, making searching for a recipe or a match with a wine a lot easier.

It happened that one of the most respected and widely read wine sites, Natdecants.com, just launched a new version of its app available for Blackberry as well as iPhone, DrinksMatcher. Who doesn’t know Natalie MacLean? Just for those a little distracted, let me remind them that Natalie is an independent journalist and author of the bestseller Red, White and Drunk All Over. Her site, NatDecants.com, is a resource for all wine and food lovers. Natalie has won four James Beard Journalism Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. At the World Food Media Awards in Australia, she was named the World’s Best Drinks Writer.

The first version of her free mobile app worked well. The new version is much enhanced. It includes 380,000 food and wine pairings and thousands of wine reviews. You can search the reviews by winery, price, score, region, grape, vintage, food match, check how many bottles of a particular wine are in local liquor stores or search a directory of 10,000+ wineries to buy wine or plan a visit.

It is always exciting to see a new technology, 100% user-centered taking off and being adopted by more and more businesses. It is so positive to see entrepreneurs, such as Natalie MacLean, ready to make the investment in a new technology and not charging the consumers for this new level of service. Thanks to all those customer-driven entrepreneurs who make the world such an exciting place to be!

In 1999, the Web was still considered an innovation in Europe. In France, 11,6% were connected; 100,000 adventurous people are managing their bank accounts on line; e-commerce brings 200,000 euros! It was also the time of the Internet boom: start-ups are getting millions from angels and investors. After two years of euphoria and craziness, it is the krach. But, in spite of that, one third of the French population was connected – mostly by cable. Amazon.com and ebay.com opened their French site. A healthy sign of confidence in the new economy! In 2004, 12 million French were on line, more than 50% connected by cable or high-speed. Apple launched its iTunes platform in France. In 2005, two years after the US, French people became addicted to blogs. 2 million French bloggers appeared almost over night! In 2006, advertising on line brought several million euros. In 2007, the iPhone became available in France. In 2009, over 32 million French people were connected; they were aware of Facebook and discovering Twitter.

Of course, France is not the most Internet friendly country. Regulation is the keyword for the French administration on connectivity, privacy, wine, advertising, e-commerce. In spite of all the restrictions, France is opening up to the 21st century. To look at the future, one has to look at the US. In the last ten years, I saw tremendous innovations coming from the US in the wine industry: services for wineries such as VinoVisit.com, search engine specifically tailored to wine like ablegrape.com, think tanks like VinTank.com, on line wineries such as Crushpad, new packaging. I also saw some innovations coming from Europe, like the unique code designed by adegga.com in Portugal.

New consumers generated new marketing strategies and new trends: women and Millennials, emerging countries. China and India became the new powers – first by the exponential number of wine consumers but mainly by their potential production.

Let’s not forget the incredible wine communities spread all over the Internet in already existing communities: wine groups in LinkedIn.com, pages or groups on Facebook, networks on Twitter now helped by the search. Individuals became leaders and carry the new trends to new countries and new consumers. It would be incredibly long and difficult to mention all the innovations but i’m really amazed by what happened on the Net in ten years.

I look forward to witnessing and being a modest part of the formidable innovations that will take place in the next ten years. Welcome to 2010!

As usual, a report by VinTank creates a lot of interest amongst wine aficionados and tech people. Good iPhone apps in the wine business are not that easy to find. VinTank’s report is of great help to the wine consumer: Paul Mabray went through all the hard work of buying the apps, and creating various filters to test them (wine reviews, wine and food pairing, wine journal, social media capabilities, Point of purchase option, User Interface, innovation and data cleanliness). With those 8 features, any wine consumer can chose the app most pertinent to his/her use.

VinTank’s paper is very informative on the best BtoC apps. The top apps recommended are good tools to establish and maintain contact between wine companies and consumers.

This said, my main concern is that there is no real app for wine professionals. As such I’m also interested in price comparisons between two or more sites and not only what the price point. I’d also be interested in auctions for more expensive wines.

Next steps for the industry: mobile site for all wineries to maintain the stream between wineries and consumers, more BtoB apps and specific apps for high end wines (Opus One, Haut-Brion, Palmer, Sassicaïa, etc.). And more reports from VinTank!

I’m fascinated by the use of the Web 2.0 tools made by consultants, wineries, start-ups in the wine business. Everyday there is a new site, a new application, a new idea by someone or a company. We know VinTank and its super innovative process, Cruvee, ablegrape.com, snooth.com, thewinespies.com, vinobilia.com and many many others. Don’t be offended if I didn’t mention you: I’d like to finish writing my post before breakfast tomorrow morning!

Is the user of the Net – you, me, anybody who is not in the business of producing wine or communicating/selling/marketing wine – as innovative and creative? Do we use those tools to organize a trip to a wine country? I just read the post of Rebecca Kelley on her trip to Napa Valley. She used yelp.com and an iPhone to identify the wineries she’d like to visit. This strategy requires from the wineries to be social media savvy. And it worked! Rebecca had a wonderful time.

Could we do the same thing in Europe? Why not? More and more wineries are now now using social media for marketing and branding: some have blogs regularly updated, some have mobile sites available from iPods or 3G phones, a lot have Facebook and/or Twitter accounts. They’re accessible also on various wine communities who share tasting notes or trip experiences. Unfortunately we don’t have any yelp.com – yet! – but it could be a good idea for an European entrepreneur to start such a site.

Whatever the outcome of this idea among European start-ups, it seems the European wine world is getting more and more Web 2.0 savvy. My next travel trip will be done only using Web 2.0 tools and I’m sure it will be a great adventure!