Let’s be honest, everyone loves medals. We love how they shine and dangle, and the more, the better. They help us rank everything from films and books to restaurants. But wine? Believe it or not, hundreds of competitions take place worldwide each year, some massive global showcases, others small regional fairs. It’s a dizzying landscape, and most of us couldn’t name any of them.
What if someone could cut through all that noise and condense every sticker-worthy accolade into one clear, trustworthy score, built on eight essential criteria that separate the truly meaningful medals from the rest?
Enter Veaceslav Cunev, a professor, information technology (IT) company founder and winetech innovator, who joined forces with his students to create a system that tracks these accolades.
What began as a modest tech experiment soon became part of a broader transformation, one that bridged Moldova’s celebrated wine culture with its fast-growing IT sector.
That intersection captures a larger economic shift: today, Moldovan wines are recognized worldwide, but it’s the IT sector that now drives the country’s fastest-growing exports. In recent years, Moldova’s digital industry has evolved rapidly. Previously, Moldova was known for its wines, but since 2023, officially, IT services have surpassed wine in export value.
A one-of-a-kind database born in Chișinău
Cunev spends his free time writing and reading about philosophy, runs long distances daily and is usually surrounded by his students. Wine is not just a drink for him. His passion for wine runs deep — a rather common trait in Moldova — but Cunev decided to take it further. He studied the wine regions, aroma and technique and passed the sommelier courses.
He gathered his students from the Technical University of Moldova and began collecting data from 79 wine‑producing countries worldwide. They started a company, which was registered in Moldova in 2014, with most of the IT talent hired on a freelance basis. Five years ago, they launched the Global Wine Rating platform, which today stands as the most comprehensive and unique database of its kind. The team created an algorithm that turns medals and awards into a simplified 100‑point score.
Built from over 400 competition results worldwide since 2000, the database collects, cleans and compares results across the industry. The platform calculates scores based on medals and public data, making it easier to understand what a wine’s recognition actually means. The algorithm behind it is transparent and unique, designed to reflect not opinion but structure and correlation across different rating systems. GWMR also integrates Vivino scores alongside official awards to offer a complete view of each wine’s reputation.
“On my team are people whose knowledge lives only in their heads, insights you won’t find anywhere else,” said Cunev proudly. “What we’ve got could redefine the global wine-competition industry.”
Set to reinvent wine awards worldwide
Wine tech is evolving fast. Growers now use drones, sensors and the Global Positioning System (GPS) for vineyard management. Real-time fermentation tools give winemakers instant quality data. Shipment tracking and blockchain secure every step from vine to glass. And AI even helps craft ideal blends.
Today, every winemaking event includes a panel on digital transformation in viticulture. This year, the 46th World Congress of Vine and Wine featured a special focus on wine tech, and guess what? Moldova hosted it.
While one Moldovan team is transforming wine medals into a clear score, akin to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for films, another is innovating in a different but equally inventive way. WineOpsys is an early-stage development project created by BlazarLabs. Think of it as a smart control panel for winemakers, designed to monitor every stage from the grapes’ origin to the winemaking process and distribution. WineOpsys, created in collaboration with the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, uses real-time sensors, QR codes and blockchain.
Tudor Cotruță, co-founder of BlazarLabs, highlights Moldova’s ideal conditions: an open-minded government, abundant local IT talent and the agility to move and test quickly in a compact market. “On top of that,” he adds with a smile, “wine is woven into our national DNA.”
How Moldova swapped wine for IT
A key element of this IT-development strategy was the establishment of the Moldova Innovation Technology Park (MITP) in 2018 and the government’s commitment to maintain a low tax regime of 7% on turnover. Since its launch, MITP has seen nearly 1,600 IT companies founded and attracted 178 foreign investments from 33 countries.
A global digital transformation expert at the Swiss nonprofit Cardano Foundation, Jeremy Firster, sees Moldova’s IT sector as a hidden gem finally ready for its moment in the spotlight. “There’s a hidden secret in Moldova — its IT sector,” said Firster.
In his opinion, that impressive growth mirrors broader global trends and ensures that “the next person is standing on the shoulders of the giants before them in delivering a new, innovative solution”. Firster believes that by combining Moldova’s strong IT talent with its centuries-old winemaking tradition, the country has everything it needs to build the world’s most advanced, IT-integrated wine industry.
This vision is already taking shape thanks to innovators like Gustos.life team, whose blend of IT expertise and deep love for wine is setting a new global benchmark in wine-tech solutions.
[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
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