wein.plus announces five-language offer for 2021

The wine platform wein.plus will offer its content in five languages during 2021, accelerating its strategy of European growth.

wein.plus, based in Erlangen, Germany, will make its content available to members in 2021, first in Italian, then in Spanish and French. This includes all editorial contents, the wine reviews, news and magazine articles, the producer and regional information, the world's largest wine encyclopaedia as well as all other offers. In addition, wein.plus has also strengthened its team in Austria and Switzerland. The English version of the website has been available since 2020. Thus, wein.plus will be available in five languages by the end of the year.

For this purpose, the company has expanded the editorial team, the tasting team as well as the corporate development in the target countries. The team of programmers, editors and designers has already been working on the technical realisation of the multilingual concept since 2020. "Our members have already been coming from Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France for many years," managing director Utz Graafmann explains the strategy, "together with them and many new members in these states, we want to create a European network for wine enthusiasts and the entire wine industry. We will open their eyes across the borders, promote European exchange and make our community even stronger across the borders." This also means precisely understanding the needs of wine lovers, wine professionals and producers in the individual countries - and tailoring the content as well as business offers individually to them, emphasises Graafmann.

Editorial and tasting with a European view

Thus, the editorial team already reports from a European perspective in the news as well as with the comprehensive magazine articles with experienced authors: "A good topic must also arouse interest across countries so that it is publishable for them," says Utz Graafmann. This includes, for example, dealing with the very different effects of climate change, the innovative projects of digital start-ups, research projects of European universities with practical relevance, the changes in trade and distribution in Europe as well as the exciting perspectives of personalities from the European wine scene.

Tasting and wine evaluation will also receive an expanded focus with the help of the staff from the European countries. They will support the team with their excellent contacts to associations and wineries as well as with the elaborate logistics for wine submission. "Despite these investments, wein.pluswill continue not to charge tasting fees in order to guarantee the independence of the wine evaluation," emphasises Managing Director Utz Graafmann.

European framework agreements with high benefits for members

The managing director and his team are also negotiating with partners on European framework agreements in order to turn the strength of the soon to be much larger wine network into a concrete advantage for each individual member. For example, the conditions for parcel shipping, logistics, packaging purchasing and many other industry-specific services could be significantly more favourable for all members than for each individual user "We will offer our members across Europe even more benefits, monetary advantages and particularly interesting content"describes Utz Graafmann his strategy.

Currently, tests are underway for the complex, elaborate translation processes into the various languages with the support of native speakers, specialised programmers and developers. In addition, the wein-plus team is working on further improvements in design and interaction. Already in a few months, the offer is to be released in Italian as a first step.