Students tap into New World wine expertise

Wine science students from the University of Adelaide are benefitting from unique insights from the US wine market by meeting remotely with leading ecommerce experts from Seattle and California. The skills they learn will give them the edge in the industry when they graduate.

In a live workshop with US company Bloom, viticulture and oenology students at the University’s Waite campus have discovered how innovative ecommerce and sales strategies are being used by wineries in the New World to boost their businesses.

“Students of viticulture and oenology complement their core studies by investigating biosecurity, sustainability, wine industry policy, regulations, compliance, market access, marketing, research, wine business, media and communications with Australian industry experts,” said the University of Adelaide’s Associate Professor Sue Bastian from the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine.

“This link up with international wine business experts 13,000km away, who have real-world experience, broadens the scope of their studies and brings an international perspective from other wine countries at a time when there is upheaval in Australia’s usual markets.”

“Learning tools such as this that link students up with the US wine industry are part of the University of Adelaide’s strategy to deliver high-quality courses using innovative methods to equip them with the skills to tackle the business challenges of the post-COVID world."Associate Professor Bastian

Charlie Warne and Lottie West, who are both in their fourth year of a Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology at the University’s Waite campus, participated in the meet up over Zoom.

“It was an awesome insight into what is involved in the world of e-commerce in relation to wine,” said Charlie.

Lottie added: “We are buzzing after this presentation. As future wine producers we learned about so many important things that we hadn’t previously considered: thank you.”

Seattle-based creative services and software development agency Bloom is on a mission to help wineries save time, sell more wine, and grow their business. The company has developed new software, also called Bloom, which is designed to be a growth platform for modern wineries.

“As part of this live workshop, students received insights into how integral ecommerce and direct to consumer (DTC) sales are being used by wineries,” says Patrick Stroud, founder and managing director of Bloom.

“They gained knowledge into the unique challenges facing wineries when it comes to ecommerce and digitizing their businesses.

“When we created Bloom, we did so in response to the need we saw in the wine industry for a modern-day growth ecommerce solution for wineries built on top of an integrative, open architecture ecommerce platform like Shopify.”

Bloom has designed platforms for many wineries in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The online workshop was held on 10 May. It demonstrated what a unified global wine industry can achieve together.

“Learning tools such as this that link students up with the US wine industry are part of the University of Adelaide’s strategy to deliver high-quality courses using innovative methods to equip them with the skills to tackle the business challenges of the post-COVID world,” says Associate Professor Bastian.