How the wine industry communicates about wine to the consumer is fascinating. Wine companies try to communicate directly or indirectly through their wine labels, winery websites, advertising, social media and various other means. These efforts are sometimes inspiring, quite often funny or frustrating, and occasionally heartbreaking. The wine technical sheet is a key weapon in the wine marketer’s arsenal and one that is very often overlooked.
Technical sheets may not be the sexiest part of marketing wine, but when done right they can be a seriously effective trade marketing tool.
The sheet lists all the pertinent technical information about the wine including how and where the fruit was grown, how the wine made and aged, and potentially much more. Tech sheets are important.
We talk a lot about the acidity of wine on the blog more as a reference to how acidic a wine tastes which, as it happens, is sometimes in reference to pH versus total acidity. The topic is actually quite complex (if you want to get into it, see sources below). Fortunately, Dr. Andrew Waterhouse, Professor of Enology, UC Davis, has a beautiful explanation:
Aging wine changes numerous phenolic qualities of a wine, particularly the taste and quality of tannin, which is why red wines tend to receive more aging than white wines. On the same note, white wines are typically made to highlight their floral aromas and acidity (ahem… “tartness”), and these traits are reduced with aging.
This topic is profoundly deep, as you can observe in the sources below, but anyone can grasp the basics–that is to say, anyone who wants to know them!
This is an in-depth article for geeks with an itch for the nitty-gritty details of wine. If you are, you’ve certainly come across technical wine data before. So, what can we learn by looking at wine tech sheets?
Most of us experts will agree that technical data doesn’t define the quality of a wine, but it can help you understand a particular wine, especially when comparing different vintages.
Don’t get lost in translation
I live and work in France, so I have dealt with a range of French wine producers. You would be surprised how many do not produce English technical sheets for their wines. Besides that, many rely on Google Translate for a semi-comprehensible piece of Franglish. French-English translations don’t cost that much, so you should make the investment. Get it done by a native speaker if you want your English-speaking voice to do your brand justice. It’s not necessary to offer technical sheets in every language known to humankind, but consider where you do business. I’d suggest that English is a must and, depending on your current or desired export markets, it could be worth investing in some others.
What is a wine tech sheet?
FAQ
What is the ideal TA for red wine?
What is the difference between pH and TA in wine?
What is wine technology?
What does TA mean in wine terms?
What are wine technical sheets?
Wine technical sheets are short documents providing key information about a specific wine. They are produced by or on behalf of the winery and are intended to help the reader, usually a wine professional, to quickly understand a given wine. While there is no universal format, most technical sheets share some common facts and figures.
How do you write a wine technical sheet?
While there is no universal format, most technical sheets share some common facts and figures. At a minimum, yours should state: The producer’s name and the wine brand name, where applicable.
Is a wine technical sheet Sexiest?
The technical sheet may not be the sexiest weapon in the wine marketer’s arsenal, but overlook it at your peril. When done right, your wine’s tech sheet is an effective trade marketing tool that can help you influence how your audience perceives your winery and, ultimately, sell more wine. What is a wine technical sheet?
Can a wine technical sheet be a sales and marketing support tool?
Once or twice, a potential customer would peruse one of the sheets and decide to make a purchase, more often they didn’t. The merits or otherwise of that company’s commercial and human resources policies aside, this is an example of how a wine technical sheet can be a critical sales and marketing support tool.