=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3293/paper51
|storemode=property
|title=Towards Creating a Customized Wine Story for Engagement and Transparency
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper51.pdf
|volume=Vol-3293
|authors=Ioannis Chrysakis,Panagiotis Papadakos,Theodore Patkos,Giorgos Flouris,Georgios Samaritakis,Dimitris Angelakis,Nikoleta Tsampanaki,Nena Basina,Pavlos Baritakis,Ariadne Pratikaki,Ilias Loulakakis,Bart Lyrarakis
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/ChrysakisPPFSAT22
}}
==Towards Creating a Customized Wine Story for Engagement and Transparency==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper51.pdf
Towards Creating a Customized Wine Story for Engagement and
Transparency
Ioannis Chrysakis 1,2,3, Panagiotis Papadakos 1, Theodore Patkos 1, Giorgos Flouris 1,
Georgios Samaritakis 1, Dimitris Angelakis 1, Nikoleta Tsampanaki 1, Nena Basina 1, Pavlos
Baritakis 1, Ariadne Pratikaki 1, Ilias Loulakakis 4 and Bart Lyrarakis 5
1
FORTH-ICS, Nikolaou Plastira 100, Heraklion, 70013, Greece
2
Ghent University, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, IDLab, imec, Technologiepark-
Zwijnaarde 1229052 Ghent, Belgium
3
KU Leuven, Department of Computer Science, Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Leuven, Belgium
4
Baked Advertising, Leof. Knosou 177, Heraklion 71409, Greece
5
Lyrarakis Wines, Alagni, Heraklion, 70300, Greece
Abstract
The wine industry has evolved thanks to the introduction of new technologies (e.g., sensors,
digital tools) and the emerging needs of the wine audience, which seeks transparency for the
wine product to ensure quality, sustainability, food safety and engagement. Since the
competition in the wine sector is extremely high, transparency via digital means is one of the
methods that wine enterprises employ to increase their competitiveness, customer loyalty, and
market share. In this paper, we present the MiB (Message-in-a-Bottle) system, a digital tool
which exploits different types of data (e.g., weather, traceability etc.) that come from different
sources (e.g., sensors, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems) to offer transparency and
better informativeness regarding the different wine labels. The MiB system applies the
technique of storytelling in tandem with interactive functionalities to maximize the level of
engagement. It is developed in the frame of the MiB project and is planned to go into the market
through Lyrarakis wine enterprise. The proposed approach offers a competitive advantage to
wine enterprises that can lead to increased sales and profits.
Keywords 1
Wine industry, storytelling, sustainability, transparency, digital agriculture
1. Introduction
There is a growing trend in food awareness, such as reducing the environmental and climate footprint
of the food supply chain [1, 2]. This trend also applies to the wine industry, as the wine audience requires
transparency for different aspects of the wine product [3, 4]. For example, wine consumers and wine
professionals may be interested in details about the vineyard (e.g., soil texture), the wine matching process
(e.g., use of water), or the wine ingredients (e.g., sugar content). This information is valuable to all involved
parties in the wine industry, so there is a need for the systematic gathering of information and for applying
appropriate presentation methods.
Furthermore, a digital system that exploits information from the wine production chain could improve
transparency and increase food awareness, and, thus, strengthen brand recognition and customer loyalty for
the respective wine producer, increasing sales and profits.
Proceedings of HAICTA 2022, September 22–25, 2022, Athens, Greece
EMAIL: hrysakis@ics.forth.gr (A. 1); papadako@ics.forth.gr (A. 2); patkos@csd.uoc.gr (A. 3); fgeo@ics.forth.gr (A. 4);
samarita@ics.forth.gr (A. 5); agelakis@ics.forth.gr (A. 6); tsaban@ics.forth.gr (A. 7); basina@ics.forth.gr (A. 8); pbaritak@ics.forth.gr (A.
9); ariadne@ics.forth.gr (A. 10); liakos@baked.gr (A. 11); bart@lyrarakis.com (A. 12)
ORCID: 0000-0003-2665-4056 (A. 1); 0000-0001-8926-4229 (A. 2); 0000-0001-6796-1015 (A. 3); 0000-0002-8937-4118 (A. 4); 0000-
0002-8785-2075 (A. 7); 0000-0002-6848-4270 (A. 8)
©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
284
In the frame of the MiB Project, we developed an information system, called the MiB system [5]. The
system aggregates meaningful information to create a unique story for each wine label by applying
storytelling. Storytelling is widely used in the wine sector as an effective engagement technique for
customers [6]. The storytelling of MiB is based on geological, viticultural, wine making, oenological,
climatic, cultural and sustainability data. Data is combined with multimedia content (photos, videos) and
other achievements (awards, producers biographies) to give to the user the full picture for each wine label.
MiB offers a suite of applications that allow users to: (a) navigate through wine products and their related
features by providing a storytelling-based presentation (Main Application), b) obtain food and wine
recommendations (Le Sommelier Application) c) register each bottle for validating the authenticity of the
product itself (Authenticity Application), d) interact with a digital label in an augmented reality experience
(AR Application), and e) manage the available data (Admin UI Application).
2. The MiB System
MiB provides a rich ecosystem of services and applications able to create a transparent wine story
for the users. These users can be either wine producers/enterprises, or anyone who is interested in wine
from consumers to professionals of the domain (oenologists, sommeliers, retailers). Wine producers are
the administrators of the system, whereas consumers and professionals constitute the end users.
Administrators can collect data related to their wine products from various sources such as ERP
systems, weather stations, or even manually from people that participate in the viticulture or wine
making process. These data are injected in the system, allowing the presentation of the wine products
using a storytelling technique [7] in an engaging manner [8]. End users can navigate through the
available labels and wine characteristics and find the wine that satisfies their needs.
MiB follows a typical 3-tier architecture consisting of: the data tier, the application tier and the
presentation tier. Different applications reside in the presentation tier and they communicate with the
database (data tier) through RESTful web services [9] (application tier).
2.1. The MiB Model
The MiB data model (Figure 1) embraces fundamental entities that typically appear in a wine story
[10, 11]. Thus, it captures information related to:
1. label; wine details such as year, flavor, alcohol and acidity (Label entity)
2. variety; details such as the color and the name (Variety entity)
3. historic and folklore elements (Cultural entity)
4. sustainability; information such as water management and farming soil health (Sustainability
entity)
5. meteorological; information as captured by the installed vineyard weather sensors (Meteo
entity)
6. vineyard; information such as the altitude, location, other viticulture details such as irrigation
or ripening (Vineyard entity), and the producers (Producer entity)
7. winemaking; details including a wine making diary (Wine Making Diary entity)
8. food elements; including recipes and recommendation captured in the respective entities (Food,
Recipe, Justification entity)
9. awards: details for specific years of wine labels (Award entity)
10. authenticity; information that denotes if a specific bottle has been already registered (Bottle
entity)
2.2. The Applications
The MiB system includes five applications: Main Application, Le Sommelier Application,
Authenticity Application, Augmented Reality (AR) Application and Admin (UI) Application.
285
The Main Application2 (Figure 2) embeds the other applications, except from the Admin UI
Application3, which is available only for the MiB administrators. It offers a storytelling experience upon
the ingested wine labels of the database. The Main Application is accessible via the web browser, or
via QR code scanning. All data are retrieved through the MiB web services, populated in the Main
Application and presented accordingly in two information layers. The basic layer contains coarse-
grained information: basic description of the label itself, the producer(s), the vineyard, the winemaking
process, the number of acquired awards (if any), food pairing suggestions and cultural elements. This
layer is presented to the users through scrolling. The second layer contains more detailed information
such as sustainability, meteorological, and geological information. This layer is activated by call-to-
action buttons, which are included in different sections of the interface.
The ‘Le Sommelier Application’ (Figure 3) allows pairing wine with food and vice-versa, enhancing
both the experience of the user and the information she receives. In contrast to most similar approaches
that hardcode one-to-one wine-to-dish pairings, our application enables exploring wine suggestions that
nicely pair to multiple dishes, potentially diverse in flavor and characteristics. Le Sommelier models
domain-experts’ knowledge in the form of strict and weak prioritized rules, and performs logical
reasoning using the declarative language Answer Set Programming (ASP) [11]. The application
executes reasoning by exploiting the state-of-the-art tool Clingo4 to tackle different search problems
that appear during processing recommendations.
Figure 1: The MiB Model
2
Demo: https://mibproject.lyrarakis.com/demo/
3
https://mibproject.lyrarakis.com/demo-admin/ (username/password: test/test)
4
https://potassco.org/clingo/
286
Figure 2: The Main Application
Figure 3: The Le Sommelier Application
The Authenticity Application applies a crowdsourcing approach for authenticating bottles. It is based
on pairs of public and private keys, uses plain QR printers, and requires the active participation of
consumers for checking and registering authentic bottles, and for providing information for the
counterfeit ones. This interactive process creates a relation of trust between consumers and producers,
and can be incentivized by offering a gamification approach to customers that register their bottles.
The Augmented Reality (AR) Application (Figure 4) aims at letting consumers interact with the
digital label of a corresponding wine label, in an engaging way using WebXR 5. WebXR is currently
offered on top of Google’s AR services6 for supported devices. The application overlays a digital
interactive label on top of the real-world one, which has to be tracked accurately and consistently in
real-time and in various light conditions.
5
https://www.w3.org/TR/webxr/
6
AR services 1.29.213210223
287
Figure 4: The AR Application
The Admin UI Application (Figure 5) offers a content management facility for administrators,
allowing them to manage the MiB database or add new data, such as the wine making diary of a new
year for a specific wine label, or adding new photos or videos that will be part of the corresponding
wine story. In addition, it offers an exploratory service for monitoring the bottles that are available in
the market, along with any non-genuine bottles and their associated information added by worldwide
customers.
Figure 5: The Admin UI Application
2.3. Added Value from Using the MiB System
The contribution of MiB is twofold. On the one hand, it offers a system that is easy to use (web-
based, mobile-friendly, platform agnostic, multilingual, easy access) by both administrators and end
users. On the other hand, it creates benefits for the wine enterprises which employ it.
288
2.3.1. Benefits for Users and Administrators
The MiB System offers a storytelling experience for wine labels. This experience raises awareness
by providing accurate and clear information about the entire wine production process. It also gives them
recommendations for food and wine pairing, as well as relevant recipes that make the wine selection
process more playful and meaningful. Additionally, the augmented reality application lets consumers
interact with the digital label while exploiting MiB data. By authenticating specific bottles, the users
benefit from increased trust in the authenticity of the product.
MiB Administrators benefit from the data management functionality and the monitoring of
authenticity. The first allows them to curate wine stories whereas the second gives them an extra level
of control, especially for receiving information on multiple cases of non-genuine bottles.
2.3.2. Benefits for Wine Enterprises
The MiB system offers multiple benefits for wine enterprises. It contributes to transparency because
it gives access to information related to the wine production chain for any involved parties. Also, it
provides an engaging way of presenting wine stories to consumers based on combined data from the
past (e.g., cultural data, vineyard geological elements) and the present (e.g., data from weather sensors,
photos, videos). Moreover, the MiB system contributes to food safety because the authentication of the
wine purchased guarantees its origin.
Finally, the system offers an extensible and scalable approach to support additional meaningful
features for the wine industry. For example, MiB can support the legal obligations that arose for wine
enterprises in the EU to support access of consumers to nutritional information for each wine7.
3. Conclusion
We described the MiB system, a web-based information system developed in the context of the MiB
project, which allows the wine audience to better understand the characteristics of the wine purchased
or consumed. The system is composed of five applications. The main one provides a storytelling
experience and allows users to navigate through the wine characteristics at the desired level of detail.
Other applications provide value-adding services, such as the ability for optimal wine-food pairing, the
ability to verify the authenticity of the purchased bottle and the enhancement of the wine drinking
experience through an AR Application. The functionality of the MiB system is based on data provided
by the winemaker through the Admin UI application.
Although the system has been tested over the labels of the Lyrarakis wine enterprise, it is designed
to be generic and can be easily adapted to support other wine enterprises, as well as other domains (e.g.,
oil, cognac, etc). We argue that using the MiB system will help wine producers stand out from the
competition, increase customer engagement and loyalty, and, thus, increase sales and profit.
4. Acknowledgements
This work has been funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Business Program Crete
2014-2020 in the frame of MiB Project (KPHP1-0028556).
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