They call it Augmented Reality, or AR, the technology behind the ‘Pokémon Go’ craze of 2016, that saw kids patrol the streets, mobile phones held out in front of them as they searched for Pokémon characters. Just another video game, yes, but thanks to AR, each player’s camera showed their real-life location and surroundings, in real time, with a range of Pokémon characters super-imposed on it, seemingly part of and interacting with, reality.
You may already have come across ’19 Crimes’, launched last year as the first range of wines to feature AR. Each label of the 19 Crimes range of Australian wines featured one of the British convicts sent to the colony in the 18th century, for violating one of a list of 19 crimes. Having downloaded the accompanying app, pointing the camera at the wine’s label animated the face of the convict as a voiceover told their story.
Now, Argentine producer Finca Decero has developed its own AR wine that takes things further, with the label transforming into a whole animated story of the wine and the vineyard that is very nicely done, again via a free app for iPhone or Android. You probably won’t watch it more than once, but it is a real talking point and another rare example of wine marketing grasping new opportunites to perhaps find a new audience, in a sector of the drinks industry that lags so far behind beer, gin, vodka, rum or whisky in making its products stand out through packaging and ‘experience’.
It’s also interersting that Finca Decero has chosen a high-end Bordeaux blend for the project rather than a cheaper wine, and that’s also a good thing because the wine certainly stands on its own merits, Augmented or not.
Before my tasting note, a short film I made to show the AR label in action: