White wine emoji campaign gathers pace
US winery Kendall-Jackson has thrown its weight behind calls for a white wine emoji, submitting a 15-page proposal for review by authorities.
A red wine emoji is used hundreds of times daily on platforms such as Instagram and Whatsapp but white wine lovers and producers have no similar way to express their affection.
Things could change, however, after Kendall-Jackson submitted a 15-page proposal on a white wine emoji to the arbiter of such things, also known as the Unicode Consortium that counts Google, Facebook, Microsoft and IBM executives among its board members.
‘Our submission for a white wine emoji has been accepted for review,’ said the wine producer on a campaign page imploring supporters to use the hashtag #whitewineemoji. According to reports, two other producers – Flora Springs and Fetzer – also made similar proposals, but only one can be taken forward.
See also: Decanter’s tasting notes decoded – what our tasters mean when they describe wines
However, it could be a long road.
In May this year, Unicode released a draft list of 104 emojis being considered for release in 2019. White wine was not listed. Food and drink emojis currently on the draft list include an ice cube, a juice carton, falafel and an oyster; although, technically, the latter is listed under the animal-marine category.
Kendall-Jackson only submitted its white wine proposal on 11 May, and revised it on 22 June.
The report contains a wealth of background information, from the ‘deep spiritual significance’ of wine and popularity of Chardonnay to the release of ‘Grigio Girls’ by Lady Gaga and various calls on social media for a white wine emoji to become reality.
It also cites analytics site ’emoji stats’ as showing that the red wine glass emoji is used 518 times per day on average, according to data from tracked devices.
That number had risen to 524 when checked by Decanter.com on the same site.
The red wine emoji had been used 531,179 times in its lifetime by mid-afternoon on 30 July, with the popping-cork Champagne emboji having been used 833,535 times, shows the group’s site.
