Roger Noujeim doesn’t care for the idea of wine lovers hemming and hawing in the aisles of a liquor store, trying to remember if they prefer the taste of a certain vintage from Sonoma over that from the Okanagan.
“There is a paradigm shift in the wine industry that’s going to benefit the wine consumer tremendously worldwide,” said the CEO of Quini, a Vancouver-based startup that compiles wine-tasting market data.
“And that is the speeding up of the understanding of one’s palate so that the wine consumer is more confident and accurate in their wine-buying.”
And when wine connoisseurs arrive at the annual Whistler Cornucopia food and drink festival, which runs November 6-16, Noujeim is certain he can help speed up the development of the palates using technology.
Quini launched an iPhone app about a year ago that allows people to rate wines by appearance, aroma, taste, lingering effects (finish) and overall opinion.
Cornucopia marks the first time the startup is using a new service, Quini In Events, to create a database of every wine that appears at that particular event.
Users will be able to plug in “#Cornucopia2014” on their smartphones to search and review all the wines being poured at the festival.
The app keeps track of user’s ratings and determines how people respond to different varieties.
The more data users input, the more it narrows down preferences to favoured grape varieties, wineries and even particular regions of the world.
“The critical piece…is that it builds a taste profile that tells you your likes and dislikes about wine in general,” Noujeim said.
“Which means, I go into a store and I know exactly which areas of a store to avoid.”
