Real Time Wine

Real Time Wine was a South African mobile application focused on social wine discovery, founded by digital strategist Andy Hadfield. The venture was established to demystify the wine purchasing process for the average consumer, targeting the 80% of the market often alienated by the complex and exclusive language of traditional wine reviews. Hadfield, a self-described digital native fascinated by the internet's impact on business, aimed to solve the common problem of a consumer feeling overwhelmed when facing a large selection of wines in a supermarket.

The business operated through a mobile and web application that allowed users to scan a wine bottle's barcode. This action would pull up two columns of information: reviews from selected wine personalities and reviews from the general user community. The platform was designed as a social experience, enabling users to add their own ratings, reviews (limited to 140 characters and free of specific jargon), and the retail price they paid. This crowdsourcing of price data provided a valuable feature, allowing consumers to check if they were paying a fair market price. As users logged the wines they drank, the app built a personalized profile of their tastes, which could then be used for future recommendations, creating a consumption data intelligence model.

The service was free for users, with intended monetization paths including e-commerce and a subscription-based wine delivery service curated by the community's preferences, positioning it as a competitor to established 'wine of the month' clubs. Despite building a strong community with thousands of fans and tens of thousands of reviews, the company ultimately ceased operations in May 2014. The founder, Andy Hadfield, stated that while they had built a great product, the business failed to monetize quickly enough within the South African market of socially active, smartphone-using wine drinkers. Following the closure, the application's code was made open-source.

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