Kendall-Jackson launches campaign to create white wine emoji

If Kendall-Jackson has its way, a white wine keyboard emoji will be coming to a smartphone near you as soon as spring 2019.

The campaign to a bring a white wine emoji - or emoticon - to keyboards worldwide began in earnest this February, in response to years of requests from Kendall-Jackson's social media fans for a wine emoji that could correctly correlate with their wine-drinking preferences.

As Maggie Curry, director of marketing for Kendall-Jackson Winery, would like to remind you: The winery's Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay is the No. 1 best-selling white wine in America - and has been for more than 25 years.

“We looked at this, like, beer has two emojis; champagne has two emojis; and the only representation for wine is the red wine glass,” she said.

After more than three months crafting an application to create a universal coding standard for a white wine glass, Kendall-Jackson submitted its application to the Unicode Consortium this May.

The nonprofit corporation oversees which emoji proposals make it into development and which don't. This spring, Kendall-Jackson representatives will have the opportunity to present a 10-minute keynote speech before a panel of Unicode Technical Committee judges for review.

So far, the proposal - backed by hundreds hours of research and supported by local and international wineries - has successfully passed through the initial review.

“We know we're not changing the world, but we're looking to change the world's keyboards” Curry said. “We're ready for some light-heartedness around wine and the wine community ... The wine industry takes itself so seriously. This is a fun moment.”

On Aug. 4, just in time for National White Wine Day, Kendall-Jackson launched its “White Wine Emoji” digital campaign, asking wineries and white wine fans around the world to use #WhiteWineEmoji to show the Unicode Consortium the interest behind the idea. So far, nearly 30 wine partners throughout the world have signed on to the campaign in support. In the three weeks since the campaign launched, #WhiteWineEmoji has been shared more than 3,500 times across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“There is an interest in new wine drinkers entering the scene and giving it a try, and the more we can do to (make it approachable), the better,” Curry said. “I don't want to create a Millennial wine. I don't want to be something we're not. But I think the emoji allows us to speak that modern language of communication.”