Denver Man Launches New App to Make Wine Tasting Less Boring

Drinking wine is fun. Learning about wine…not so much. 

Denverite Eric Senescu discovered that firsthand during the pandemic lockdown, when he and his wife took an online wine course to relieve the monotony and try learning something new. “It was more boring than we already were,” he says of the experience. “There were parts of it that were interesting, but there was a lot that was very dense and kind of textbook heavy.”

So he created BlindVine, an interactive wine tasting game that pits players against each other to see who can best identify the distinct characteristics of the five included wine samples by correctly answering a series of common questions through the integrated app. 

How it works

The game kit comes with five pre-selected 187-milliliter bottles of wine — two white and three red. Players don’t know what type of wine is in each, but the app does, and it helps players narrow their guesses by asking a series of leading questions that, if answered correctly, provide clues to whether they’re sipping a Sauvignon Blanc or a Chardonnay. 

As players drink each sample, the app prompts them through the standard wine-tasting protocols (swirl, sniff, sip) and then asks them to answer questions about their experience. Is the wine herbal or earthy? Does it smell like wood or grass? How acidic is it? Are there notes of mango or lime? 

Based on those answers, players can then guess the varietal of each and find out whether they’re right. Those with the most points win bragging rights over their fellow players, and maybe learn something along the way. 

Wine pros will tell you that there’s really no “right” or “wrong” answers in defining what you’re smelling or tasting, so long as you ultimately understand the characteristics of different types of wine and why they matter. But BlindVine largely ignores that in order to gamify what is otherwise a very subjective process. 

“It’s just not an approachable category for most people, and so that’s the biggest pain point for consumers,” says Senescu. “The stat I’ve found is that 80 percent of wine drinkers self-identify as knowing very little to nothing about wine. So BlindVine aims to reduce the stigma and the intimidation and let people enjoy an experience without being scared of not knowing what they’re talking about.”

Where to Find It

Of course just having an idea for a game doesn’t exactly make it so. Fortunately, Senescu was in a unique position to turn his idea into the reality it has become. For the last fifteen years, he’s worked at early-stage tech companies in the consumer packaged goods space, including Denver’s Ibotta, where he established the beer, wine, and spirits vertical. That gave him relationships with some of the largest wine suppliers in the country, which were necessary to create the game. 

He purchased around 250 gallons of bulk wine from a handful of producers on California’s Central Coast and collaborated with a manufacturing partner to bottle it into tasting-sized portions.

After months of navigating the byzantine maze of permits, licensing, and supply chain relationships needed to create the prototype, BlindVine became available online about nine months ago through its website, supported by a smattering of advertising. 

But this month, the game made its retail debut in Colorado liquor stores thanks to a partnership with one of the largest beverage distributors in the state, Western Distributing. As a result, Colorado residents can now pick up the game in liquor stores across the Denver area as well as Colorado Springs and Summit County. According to Senescu, the entire first-run production of game kits has already been spoken for by participating retailers — including all Bevy’s locations, Mondo Vino, Davidson’s and Chambers Wine & Liquor. He is now conducting an “emergency bottling” operation to meet the remaining demand.

At launch, the game costs $50, which includes one set of wines. That means if you want to play it again, you’ll be tasting the same wines, which Senescu knows is not ideal. So in tandem with the retail launch is an effort to secure additional wine producer relationships so players can order new kits as they become available. 

A bit further down the road, the plan is to provide users the ability to program the game with whatever wine they may have at home, which will also allow bars and wine stores to host their own custom games using the app.

For now, however, wine stores are jumping at the chance to add anything to their shelves that may boost the public interest in wine. According to industry stats, global wine consumption has dropped to its lowest point in sixty years, particularly among younger generations. 

“With the wine industry really struggling and consumers drinking less, we are looking for opportunities in retail to get our customers excited about wine again,” says Phil Baertlein, owner of the Bevy’s chain of Denver area liquor stores. “BlindVine is very unique in the category, and I think it can provide something different that will allow us to re-engage with customers in a very interactive and meaningful way.”

For more information, visit getblindvine.com.