#Community
Wine Meets Data: The Moldovan Tech Project Changing How We Score Bottles
6 Aug 2025
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?
Cunev, together with his IT students, built a system to track them all.
Today, Moldovan wines are recognized worldwide. If you haven’t tasted them, you’ve at least heard of them. What’s less known is that in recent years, Moldova has seen a surprising evolution in IT, surpassing even wine in export value. In 2023, Moldova saw the highest growth in IT service exports, a result that made it the regional leader.
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, technique, and passed the sommelier courses.
He gathered his students from the Technical University of Moldova and began collecting data from seventy‑nine wine‑producing countries worldwide. The company 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.
“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.”
Veaceslav Cunev Photo credit: Marian Männi
Set to Reinvent Wine Awards Worldwide
Wine tech is evolving fast. Growers now use drones, sensors, and 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? It was hosted by Moldova.
Photo credit: Marian Männi
While one Moldovan team is transforming wine medals into a clear score, akin to 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.
Cotruță sees the momentum in Moldova. The government’s open, the talent’s here, and IT businesses can move and test fast in a small market. “On top of that, wine is woven into our national DNA,” he said with a smile.
Tudor Cotruță Photo credit: Sergiu Malenchi
How Moldova swapped wine for IT
A key element of this IT-development strategy was the establishment of the Moldova Innovation Technology Park 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, 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, a global enterprise adoption lead at a Swiss non-profit Cardano Foundation.
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.
A smarter way to read wine labels
Gustos.life is a platform built by Veaceslav Cunev and his team to make sense of wine competition results. 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. GWR also integrates Vivino scores alongside official awards to offer a complete view of each wine’s reputation.
You can also try it through ChatGPT. Find “Wine Sommelier” by Veaceslav Cunev, upload a photo of the bottle you are holding and get instant insights on its awards and background.
Leave your email to subscribe to our newsletters *
By subscribing you agree with our Privacy Policy
© 2024 Startup Moldova Foundation. All rights reserved.
