On Monday I met with my friend Andre Ribeirinho from Adegga.com and we had a good conversation about the AVIN. Up till then I had only heard very little about this project, but the more I talked to Andre, the more intrigued I became. I would like to share with you why I believe every winery should sign up and implement the AVIN code for all its wines.
But first of all let me elaborate a little on the AVIN. AVIN stands for All Vin Identification Number – it was created as a project by the social tasting note site Adegga.com as their unique identifier which they use as master data for mapping purposes. They then realised that everyone could benefit from a system which easily identifies any wine in the world and a separate company was set up. Today the AVIN is a unique 13 digit number which is used to track wines in the same way the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been used for books since the 60’s. It’s formatted in the same way and looks like AVIN6452997073019.
The benefit of the AVIN is similar to the benefit of the ISBN – i.e. it is a UNIQUE identifier for a specific wine. By this I mean that if a winery or a distributor registers their wines and add the AVIN to their tasting notes and on the label all this info can and will be collated. Furthermore, bloggers, writers and wine reviewers can add the AVIN to their review or article, and again this info will be collated back to the correct wine, which means that if a consumer enters an AVIN in Google, or any other search engine, he will get all this information back.
An added benefit of the AVIN is that a QR code is created for every AVIN, and with the rise in popularity of Mobile Tagging this means that the information linked to the AVIN is very easily retrievable by any customer.
In summary, this is why I believe every winery should be signing up for AVIN codes.
I hope that these points have convinced you that the AVIN is here to stay and that it would be a great thing to sign up for the codes and actively promote it’s usage sooner rather than later! If I have convinced you please visit the AVIN website to register and sign up for the codes:-)
The board of AVIN advisors consists of André Cid Proença, Andre Ribeirinho and Emidio Santos – all 3 founders of Adegga.com and
Gabriella and Ryan Opaz – founders of Catavino.net and the European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC).
13 comments
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January 10, 2011 at 2:30 am
Roman
As far as I can remember and according to the site Help page, AVIN stands for ‘Adegga Vin Identification Number’.
http://www.adegga.com/help/use-the-avin-integrate-wine-blog/
AVIN stands for Adegga Vin Identification Number and is a unique code for each wine.
Did they change that (drop the site name) to get more people on board ?
January 10, 2011 at 9:16 am
wizinwinebiz
Hi Roman, Thank you for your comment. Indeed AVIN used to stand for ‘Adegga Vin Identification Number’ , but in order to make it more global and also to have the project as a true independent project it was decided to change the Adegga into All – after all the aim is to have an AVIN for all wines:-)
January 10, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Arnold Waldstein
Informative article…thanks for spending the time to pull this together.
On bit of clarification.
“The winery is in control of the information entered about their wines.”
I would think that the beauty of AVIN is that no-one is in control of the information. Blogger. Catalogue. Advertisement can all affix the number to identity the wine. It insures that the wine is identified correctly but doesn’t control or sort the information that is posted about it.
We need clarity of identification not control of content I would think.
You agree?
January 10, 2011 at 6:59 pm
wizinwinebiz
Hi Arnold, thank you for the feed back. I can but totally agree with you, what we are after is not control of content just making sure the wine specific details – ie vintage, winemaking and specific viticultural practises used for this particular vintage – are correct. Having worked for a winery I know that this is not always the case… All the information provided by bloggers, reviewers, critics and distributors and advertisers will add in my opinion a wealth of knowledge!
January 10, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Brett Jones
Very informative post Caroline – thank you. AVIN is such a simple idea and QR coding is going to be used more extensively for so many things. I did some quick research about QR code reader iphone apps http://news.cnet.com/qr-code-readers-for-iphone and have now dowloaded Neoreader.
Now off to Adegga (I wish – too far away) to get a good bottle of AVIN…
January 10, 2011 at 7:04 pm
wizinwinebiz
Thank you for your comment Brett!! I am glad you enjoyed my post. You are totally right – I was at a Google presentation which was solely dedicated to QR codes and how Google sees them as the new way of surfing. All Android and Symbian phones now come standard with QR code plug-ins as mobile tagging is getting more and more popular!I hope you find your good bottle of AVIN – there are already 30,000 to choose from and I hope we can add many more in the near future!
January 10, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Katie
As a wine blogger and consumer, it would be a lot easier for me to keep track of the wines I’ve tasted if wineries would implement this AVIN code. Wineries would also be able to easily track what people are saying about their wines.
Katie at TravelPlusWine.com
January 10, 2011 at 7:06 pm
wizinwinebiz
Thank you for your comment Katie! You are so right – as a consumer I would love to have more AVIN codes as it makes keeping track of the wine indeed way easier 😉
January 12, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Philippe Hugon
AVIN is a great opportunity for Adegga to develop new revenue sources
Very interesting to see the benefits you spotted
I’ll be interested to have your view on other key players on this market like http://yourwineyourway.com in the US or http://vin.distribeo.fr and http://www.verticalwine.com in France
January 12, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Arnold Waldstein
Thnx for these Philippe.
I’m interested in this segment so do keep me appraised of other companies doing similar things.
January 14, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Philippe Hugon
I will
January 12, 2011 at 5:55 pm
wizinwinebiz
Hi Philippe,
Thank you for your comment and pointing out others have developed a similar systems. I feel that where AVIN is different is that they are not looking to sell this system but rather try and get world wide buy in for a unique wine identifiers. All 3 systems you mentioned are as far as I understand from their website:
1. a commercial system
2. trying to sell by-products linked to the identification system (tasting notes, mobile ap’s, retail systems…)
What I feel is needed is 1 unique code – be it the AVIN or another that is adopted by everybody – eg wineries, wine competitions, press, bloggers, retail stores and alcohol monopolies, etc – but which also has a QR code – as this is how all the info ultimately can get back to the customer. For this to happen I do feel that the AVIN has to be independent of Adegga, OwnIt, Vertocal wine, Distribeo and be a neutral identification number the same way the ISBN is. And I think Adegga has realized this and it trying to disctance itself from the AVIN. I am really interested in delving deeper into this subject and would love to hear views on a what you feel the value of a totally unique wine ISBN would be and how we can get everybody to co-operate to make it happen!
January 14, 2011 at 11:46 am
Andre Ribeirinho
Thanks for this great article Caroline!
@Philippe, to clarify you comment I need to say that the AVIN was created inside Adegga but is now a separate project. It is not an extra revenue source for Adegga. We’re creating a board of advisors from several different systems that can advise and help develop the code further.
@Philippe, Caroline is right when she says the AVIN wants to create a unique id for each wine as its main goal. Systems like the ones you mentioned are perfect partners for the AVIN and we’re looking forward to work together with those (and other) systems that can be better by adding the AVIN data to their existing system.
@Arnold, being a system where the data comes from several different places I would say that there are parts of the information that need to be verified which is very different from being under control. The “source” of the information is a key player in this system, be it the winery, blogger, social network, etc.