Wine consumers’ tastes consistently shift. For example, according to the Beverage Trade Network, Rosé and Prosecco have increased prominence lately. Consumer’s interest in sustainable packaging alternatives continues to grow as well as portability options such as cans or smaller bottles were emerging pre-pandemic. E-commerce based purchase options continue to gain prominence. As the world comes out of the pandemic, ecotourism should resurface as well. Innovative and interesting blends continue to delight. The wine industry continues to grow with a forecasted CAGR of approximately 3%

All these factors mean that wineries must track and be flexible enough to adapt to changes in drinking habits. Market leaders must be able to respond to the growing popularity of blends and emerging grapes.

With our focus on the food industry supply chain, the Adroit team is ready to team with today’s wineries to help optimize management and logistical issues. We work to understand your specific operational challenges, jointly craft solutions that incorporate best practices, leverage your existing winery software assets, and where necessary implement Adroit’s software solutions.

Working with Adroit, you are better positioned to efficiently create and produce products in response to newer trends.

Looking Deeper – Winery Operational Challenges

As an example of understanding how process and systems improvements can drive performance, let us review the operational challenges faced by wineries.

Today’s modern wine production software or ERP and Manufacturing Execution Systems can support and describe the wine making process which is wine crushing and clarification process which in turn is followed by a batch fermentation process. These information systems also track the feeds bottling and packaging operations. 

The key process steps to produce wine include:

• Receiving – Some wineries own and cultivate their own vineyards while others may also procure the grapes from growers. Whether the grapes are received from their own vineyards or on contract from a grower the grapes are assigned a lot number, inspected, sorted, and destemmed.
• Crushing – The premium grapes are crushed into must and fed to fermentation.
• Fermentation and Clarification – The must is placed in a fermentation tank where yeast is added. Winemakers utilize wild and cultured yeast to obtain predictable results. The must is fermented for approximately 12 days. The wine is clarified and placed into barrels for aging.
• Aging – The fermented and clarified wine barrels are transported to the cellar where they are temperature controlled and aged for 10 to 15 months with periodic topping.
• Blending – Some winemakers blend the wine from multiple grapes. Taking smaller lots of wine and blending to produce larger lots of wine.
• Bottling – The wine and blended batches are bottled, labeled, and sold.

When it comes to winery operations, one size of information systems does not fit all.

Our team helps you understand best practices and the proper application of your niche winery software and business software products.

Adroit can help you solve your forecasting, planning, production, and inventory control, and distribution channel management challenges. challenges with the application of best practices, optimizing your existing systems, or through the implementation of an Adroit software solution.

Winery Solutions for Improved Operations

Adroit understands the unique challenges presented by high volume winery operations. As operations scale to respond to market demands, key challenges that present themselves include:

• Developing a cohesive sales, operations, and finance plan (SOP Planning) with accurate forecasts, production capacities, inventory inclusive of distribution pipeline, and financial metrics.
• Driving standardized processes to support employee training and repeatability across different formulations and locations
• Transitioning from formulation spreadsheets to an online integrated system with formulation and recipe capabilities
• Meeting sophisticated supply constrained forecasting challenges
• Fully integrating traceability
• Gaining insight into grape yields and costs per unit
• Achieving the ability to plan and manage inventory
• Integrating laboratory information management systems (LIMS).
• Proactively managing by-products and waste to support sustainability
• Integrating and certifying GFSI / food safety schemas to current processes
• Complying with the various federal and state liquor laws.