Canadian wine maker advertising to satellites.

Jost Vineyards in Nova Scotia isn’t missing a trick when it comes to advertising its wine because the company is now marketing itself from space. The Canadian producer has woven the company name and a wine bottle into the vineyards in a crop-circle like incarnation so that it can be seen on Google Earth’s satellite views of the area. This satellite technology is proving to be a useful tool in promoting wine. In fact, there is now a website called Appellation America, which has uploaded satellite maps of some 3,400 wineries there. The site is dedicated to building the consciousness of the North American wine appellations and, as Eric Quanstrom, Director of Marketing, explained to ThirtyFifty: ‘We’ve noticed that once people have a map in front of them, it’s natural to explore and develop an understanding of place.’ You can check out Jost Vineyards on the site at http://wine.appellationamerica.com/vineyard/Jost_Vineyards.html Beyond this, satellite technology is also being used by wine producers to give them more information about what’s going on in their vineyards. Graham Beck uses satellite mapping – called Geographical Information Systems - to aid planting and irrigation regimes. The mapping gives key vineyard health indicators including depth, moisture, yield planting and vigour. The result for the company is that it has a greater understanding of the vineyards, enabling it to ensure short- and long-term quality improvements. Graham Beck, in fact, pioneered GIS in South Africa and was the first producer there to carry out a complete GIS study of all its vineyards.