Accelerating Wine Sales w/ Chemistry & AI w/ Kat Axelsson & Charles Slocum, Tastry

Having “taught a computer how to taste” and using that data to help winemakers improve their processes, Tastry has turned to leveraging AI and their consumer preferences and wine chemistry databases to help wineries sell wine.  Katerina Axelsson, CEO, and Charles Slocum, Chief Business Officer, discuss Tastry’s Sales Accelerator Ecosystem, which includes the Wine & Consumer Insights Report, which gives wineries, distributors, and retailers tools to help them sell more wine.  

Tastry has provided an example report for listeners. 

Detailed Show Notes: 

Tastry overview - see Ep 157 for a deeper dive

• Tagline - “taught a computer how to taste”
• It has two unique data sets - wine chemistry, US consumer taste preferences
• Helps improve winemaking, predict and react to changing consumer preferences
• Works with wineries, retailers, and distributors

Tastry commercialization history

• 1st 2 years - establish trust with winemakers
• Last year - focus on helping sell wines

Sales Accelerator Ecosystem

• Takes data from 3 areas (winery input metadata, wine chemistry, Tasty validated wine market data) to feed accelerator (AI system)
• Consists of Wine & Consumer Insights (“WCI”) report, Sales Accelerator platform app, & integrations into other platforms (e.g., e-RNDC)
• Has AI search and chat functionality
• Salespeople use data to sell to on/off-premise accounts
• Sometimes, consumer-facing in-retailer displays

WCI - 2-page report to help sell wines

• Used to train salespeople, it can be a leave-behind
• P1 - for the category buyer; P2 - for servers, staff to educate them

WCI Components: 

Top left - bottle shot, label zoom in (helps for retention); name of wine; varietal; appellation; price (what it is actually sold for in the market); wine category (AI curates category to be highest scoring on Tastry score)

Category Score - 200 point scale, 100 is average for the category

• Not a critic score
• >100 is better than the average, <100 less than average in terms of expected performance in its category against the Tastry consumer preference database (e.g., Cupcake Pinot Gris got a 181 score)
• Percentile rank - e.g., 129 = performs 29% above avg
• 10,000s wines in database out of ~160k wines in the US
• Never <15 wines in a category
• Creating a new WCI for more rare and unique wines
• Lower priced wines, terroir matters less; higher prices matter more

Tastry Notes - AI-generated tasting notes, breaks into average and more experienced drinkers

Segmented Consumer Appeal - insights into buyers of wine; if there’s at least an 85% match (roughly equates to Vivino’s 3.9-4.0 score or 88-90 critic score), consumers tend to notice they like the wine and will buy it again

Flavor profile (p1) - e.g., fruitiness, oakiness, sweetness

P2 - flavor profile (major flavors), retail talking points, food pairings - used as a training tool to help people sell wine

Launching a new page for marketing teams to update data

Retailer recommender - has shown +3-12% sales in 90 days

Tastry Pricing - $1,580/year subscription, $370/wine analyzed

How Tastry can help in the current macro environment

• Creating low / no alcohol wines
• Marketing tools (Sales Accelerator) - addressing younger audiences (e.g., pairings with kale salad and frozen pizza rolls)

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