What is Winemaking Software?
Winemaking software is a form of specialized software designed for the wine industry to manage and optimize the production process. These systems typically function similar to traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems but cater to the unique needs and workflows of wineries.
Manufacturing companies have long utilized ERP systems to help them integrate various facets of their operations-such as production, inventory management, supply chain, and finance into a unified platform. The objective of this software is to create a single source of truth that can enable the company to make better-informed decisions, reduce manual errors and improve coordination between departments. For wineries, this looks like a system that integrates vineyard management, production tracking, inventory management of raw materials, compliance support, and financial planning. Essentially, a complete and unified picture of the operations of a winery.
Why do wineries use production software?
Winemaking software empowers wineries to grow. Growth can mean greater volumes in the vineyard or cellar. It can also mean better margins or higher quality. Growing a business of any size is rarely a simple task. The practices of the organization need to evolve, all while avoiding a myriad of risks along the way. Winemaking software is a tool that managers and owners use to help support that process.
There is often an idea that winemaking software is primarily for large wineries. While there are certainly wineries for whom software might not be necessary, we actually find that even at smaller production levels the value of software can be significant. Boutique wineries tend to be resource-constrained, with smaller budgets, teams, and overall resources. As a result, they need to maximize everything they have and can’t afford large mistakes. In these instances, software can drive focus within the organization and help managers make more informed and confident decisions.
Increased Organization
The production process for wine is long, hands-on, and typically the effort of a team. The work occurs in many unique locations from the vineyard to labs and cellars. This often means that collecting information is done on whatever is easiest by whomever is performing the task which can result in information living everywhere; lab reports in email, the latest SO2 additions on barrels, spreadsheets of trackers, binders of work orders, and all those great mental notes to yourself.
Winemaking software serves as a home for all that information. By having a digital place for everything, information is easy to find when it's needed and can be available anywhere you happen to be working. On top of that, by locating that information together, it can be much easier to get a full picture of what’s going on and discover trends that may have been missed. Over time, as this repository grows, it also becomes a key asset to the business because that valuable winemaking experience can be used to train new employees or ensure continuity during personnel changes.
Reducing Wasted Time
Operational efficiency is a significant benefit to adopting winemaking software. For small wineries especially, time is a precious resource. By centralizing production information, wineries can avoid the manual effort spent moving data around or entering it into multiple sources. Through automation, software can transform that data into reports that can take days or weeks to put together manually.
One example is compiling the TTB 5120.17 report. The average winery that tracks production manually, can spend up to two weeks a year completing these reports. If production was tracked within winemaking software, they could be generated in only a few minutes. Reporting requirements are likely to increase over time with additive and labeling regulations one area of potential change.
Data-Driven Decisions
Operations software also provides analytics and reporting functionalities that enable managers to understand the business at a more granular level. The Cost of Goods Sold, defined as the direct costs associated with producing wine, is a great example of this. Wineries typically fall on a spectrum, ranging from an overall picture of what their wine costs to make to a much more detailed picture where production costs can be attributed to the final SKU. Operations software is excellent at providing that detailed visibility, which in turn, gives managers the ability to price wines more effectively or examine their production practices for ways to save money without sacrificing quality.
