Vyhnes.Press.Release.docx

Vyhnes. Your guide to wine tasting around the world.




Vyhnes is a mobile app for visitors of wine regions to help guide their wine tasting experiences. The initial release of Vyhnes addresses Napa Valley and Sonoma County wine regions. We'd like to scale quickly to wine regions in California and around the world.


Background and the market:
Wine, winemaking, wine appreciation is one of the fundamental attributes of a civilized society throughout history. Thirty two million people in the U.S. are considered high frequency wine drinkers and enjoy visiting and buying wine at wineries*. The U.S. is the top consumer of wine in the world with France, Italy, Germany, and China following. Wine tourism is a growth segment for the world wine regions. Napa Valley, alone, welcomed ~3.5 million visitors last year, is experiencing ~10% growth/year, with ~83% of the visitors seeking wineries and/or tasting rooms. There are ~1600 wineries in the U.S. (~500 in Napa Valley), add to that downtown tasting rooms/collectives and urban wine bars the number expands. Direct to the consumer sales channels remain the largest growth area for wineries and are key for the 90% of the market – the great majority of wineries can't afford the deep discounts of the "box" stores, or do not have a relationship with the primary wine distributors who control most of wine distribution.

The Solution:
Amazing options abound for the wine country visitor to taste wine in a variety of settings and experiences.

Vyhnes organizes the tasting experience in one – mobile – interactive – application. Search filters map and list wineries to the user's criteria, one click calling, a winery profile with key information for tasting, and directions guide the visitor to the experiences they desire. Visitors can personal calendar their day and visits, calendar events and expected arrival of wine shipments. After arrival they can rate and review the winery, create a list of the wines they enjoyed, and read up about wine concepts deepening their knowledge and conversations.

Vyhnes provides a way for medium and small wineries (the majority of wineries) to get on the visitor's radar, build brand awareness and DTC sales.

Why we did this. It's twofold.
1) We provide convenient way for visitors to assess and access the plethora of amazing wine tasting options, safely and efficiently guide their driving and travel to the winery (very helpful after a glass of wine), and provide a way to remember and share the experience.

2) We provide an affordable, efficient and mobile channel for wineries to connect directly with visitors, post experiences, events, and descriptions building awareness and solidifying their unique offering to visitors and purchasers.

What about the competition?
Somewhat relevant but not a direct target, competition is abundant, their focus is not the visitor's experience and preferences but pre-canned results ordinated by:

online scheduling of tastings and events by participating wineries (92% of wineries do not want an extra online, real time, scheduling software)
a list of participating wineries with special deals, offers, coupons
tourism of the area providing a tourist center for hotels, restaurants, wineries, activities, etc.
simply a thumbnail list of participating winery of that region.

Currently we do not have a direct competitor. We would like to scale quickly to keep our lead.

Where is Vyhnes available?
Vyhnes (first release) is available for free in the Apple App store. Please download Vyhnes. An Android version is due in the summer of 2017 as well as an enhanced iOS version.






















Source: http://www.academicwino.com/2015/05/demographics-purchase-behaviors-high-frequency-wine-consumers.html/