Enologix

Established in July 1989 in Santa Cruz, California, and incorporated in 2001, the company was previously named McCloskey, Arrhenius and Company for its first 4 years but changed its name to Enologix to reflect the company's expansion into luxury winemaking products for Napa Valley winemakers. Enologix is derived from Oeno, the Greek goddess of wine, and Logic, Greek for reasoning. Between 1989 and 1993 former winemaker Dr. Leo McCloskey and natural products chemist Dr. Susanne Arrhenius, both University of California-trained chemical ecologists; along with the advice of mathematician Dr. Marshall Sylvan, Stanford University, created the first mathematical model for California luxury wine market performance. It was tested with winemakers in California, Oregon, Washington, and France between 1989 and 1993, including Chalone Vineyard, Joseph Phelps Vineyards, and Ridge Vineyards in California, Rex Hill in Oregon, Canoe Ridge in Washington; and Domaines Barons Rothschild properties in Bordeaux and Chile. The most important winemaker to help Enologix was Richard Graff of Chalone Vineyard, who insisted that McCloskey prove the model with Chateau Lafite Rothchild wines. Models were developed for traditional style, taste quality and aging potential by 1993 when it was branded and trademarked Enologix and sold for the first time in February 1994 to Peter Michael Winery, Calistoga, California. It went into widespread use in the Napa Valley.

Criticisms of Disruptive New Model

Enologix solution was disruptive. Models are deterministic, with the intent of predicting market performance. Evolution of Enologix was caused due to maturation of US wine markets, as such the company added value to company financial performance. Winemakers worldwide began to use media critics’ 100-point taste quality scores to market wines for higher prices. By 1996 Enologix evolved to correlate winemakers’ to critics’ quality models. Winemakers began to use Enologix metrics to improve company performance without saying so to anyone. It was a disruptive new strategy, alternately lauded by journalists and dismissed by competing academics, but not most winemakers. By 2001 academics wanted the company to publish its—"Black Box Mathematics"—scientific methodologies, largely for reasons to compete. Wine writers supporting food section advertisers found the new model was an anathema to their expertise. A Wired Magazine story pointed out that Enologix legitimized consumer critics’ 100-point scores, which had replaced wine writers taste descriptors. Academics, such as Roger Boulton at UC-Davis, would question the methods Enologix uses and whether they actually work because Enologix has not publicly released their data and exact details of measurements. But the real issue was that no academic had published their model before Enologix. Enologix has replied to such criticism by noting that their methods are proprietary and essentially trade secrets. Another criticism leveled at Enologix is that it encourages a homogenisation of wine that matches more a wine score than reflecting the terroir of where it was made. McClosky, of Enologix, has replied to this criticism by noting the scores aid the wine drinking consumer in knowing whether or not a bottle of wine is worth the price that they are paying for the wine.