LoireWines.mobi and VINSdeLOIRE.mobi
bring you the very best of Loire wines
straight from the
cellars themselves.
LoireWines.mobi - Concept...
It all began in the winter of 2007 when I took the decision to develop two mobile internet websites: LoireWines.mobi (English) and VINSdeLOIRE.mobi (French). Each website references over 500 cellars directly. A database was created in order to ensure data integrity, a way of ensuring that all requests for data would return exact information. The idea was registered under the trademark VINS DE LOIRE™. Many thanks to Alexis BRANLARD, an Alençon University student for all his help in getting the project live.
A lot of French cellars are extremely difficult to locate and, due to being family businesses, cannot always ensure someone is present to receive visitors. I set out to solve this problem by placing the cellars in everyones pockets, which later became the slogan for the project. This was achieved by means of a tool already in everyones pocket, the mobile telephone, or smartphone, allowing the user to rapidly find the cellars (even while mobile) and to simply "touch-call" them to arrange a visit or tasting. What is more, the user may activate their GPS (in the same device) to bring them to the front door of the cellars. The project kills two birds with one stone in that firstly, it is attractive to companies wishing to order wines, while secondly it is attractive to tourists who wish to visit and buy wines.
The French system of appellations is highly complex, so my first
task was to "simplify" the system. This was achieved by removing the
appellations and replacing them with the "type" of wine, such as RED, WHITE,
SPARKLING, ROSE or SWEET.
Aside of the numerous advantages this project offers the cellars
themselves, I also assist their marketing teams by giving them access to Google
Analytics for the websites.
When I started developping the project in 2007, the French
thought I was "a leetle crazy" mixing their wines with mobile telephones... "Et
ben oui !" The project was officially launched in the Autumn of 2008 and
received recognition in an article by the newspaper "Le Courrier de l'Ouest" on
the 4th December 2008 entitiled "The Idea". Just one year later, the websites
had already been visited by over 65 countries worldwide.
With the launch of the .TEL extension by Telnic UK in March 2009, I registered VINSdeLOIRE.TEL, LoireWines.tel and also VINS.TEL with a view to repeating the whole process above throughout France. The idea is to open the door on the mobile Internet into finding ALL the French cellars under one roof!
Thanks
to the French company GS1, I can also offer my clients a service able to read
bar-codes on bottles, which returns ALL information concerning the wine in
question directly onto the mobile telephone of the user via their built-in
camera.
I wish you many happy hours tasting wines with the men and women
who produced them!
Paul SINDELL - Webmaster
™