,
The start of BaccoOnline originated in 2020 while David and Rosemarie Blum were "stuck" in Napoli/Naples, Italy for six months during the Covid pandemic and could not get a flight back to the US after a planned 2 month stay. David decided that he needed to improve his Italian language skills and met Gianluca Soffredini, (a Tuscano, Italian) online with the intention of Gianluca improving English and David Italian. David and Gianluca both had deep roots in Information Technology although Gianluca's experience is 2-3 generations of computer software beyond David's who retired in 2013.
This friendship that started with language learning expanded to discussions about the history, culture, and politics of both countries and the state of the art of software project development. After Gianluca started working with affordable Entreprise Requirements Planning (ERP) applications, both realized that there were opportunities in the marketplace. One of these opportunities included assisting small to medium sized wineries to automate the management of the business. Because of his Tuscan roots, it is easy to understand Gianluca's interest is wine. David's interested started with college experience drinking Richard's Wild Irish Rose and then with Napa wines while living in Northern California.
After researching the market for wine management software David and Gianluca realized they could replace disjointed applications (typically spreadsheets and generic accounting applications like quick books) with a streamlined ERP applications that integrate the functions of viticulture, sales & marketing and accounting and compliance reporting that is tailored to the need of small to medium sized wineries.