The digital age has enabled us to quickly learn more about a wine from reading online reviews to using a smartphone application to tell one more about a wine brand on a store shelf.
All these applications of technology have tended to tell me about the wine in general rather than a specific wine in a specific bottle. I was therefore interested to read that some wineries are embedding RFID in the label and capsule to provide information about a specific bottle of wine.
“Some wineries, like Vinyard 29 in Napa, California, are using small RFID tags, distinct radio frequency signatures buried in the labels. With smart phones gaining more muscle, users can often select one with an RFID reader built in. With such a phone, a consumer can just “phone up” a bottle prior to buying to make sure it’s legitimate,” Read Write Web recently reported.
“RFID tagging in wine started at least as early as 2004. In 2005, Italy’s Arnaldo Caprai wineries began using the SmartCorq system. Now, the transmitters can fit in labels and foil.
“Security is not the only use for RFID in the wine business. eProvenance uses RFID to keep a coherent track of wines as they travel, often globally, from vintner to buyer, ensuring the wine’s safety, but also ensuring it has been kept at ideal temperatures during its voyage.