About SommGeo
A Krug Cup winner’s response to flat maps.
SommGeo is the only platform that renders the world’s wine regions as interactive 3D geography with reference-grade content built in. Twelve years of fieldwork. Sixty regions. One atlas.
Wine Is a Location-Based Good
Every appellation is a product of its place. The slope, the soil, the aspect to the sun, the elevation, the maritime or continental influence, the precise way one side of a ridge captures light that the other side never sees. That fact sits underneath every serious wine certification, every thoughtful wine list, and every conversation about why one bottle tastes the way it does and the bottle next to it doesn’t.
Reference materials have always had a ceiling. A flat map can tell you where Côte-Rôtie sits on a page, but it can’t show you the aspect that gives the hill its name. A paragraph can describe the limestone beneath Chablis Grand Cru, but it can’t let you walk the outcrops slope by slope. A book can list the communes of Barolo, but it can’t put you on the Serralunga ridge looking west.
SommGeo was built to close that gap. Every tool on the platform renders wine geography the way it actually exists: in three dimensions, with terrain you can orbit and measure, soil and classification data as searchable layers, and reference-grade content for every mapped region. The interface is interactive because the subject matter is multi-dimensional.
Today SommGeo serves two audiences. Wine professionals and certification candidates use the platform as a study and reference tool. Trade associations, producer groups, importers, and wineries commission custom platforms that tell the story of their regions with the same depth. Both sides benefit from the same core idea: when you can see the ground, the wine makes more sense.
Three Things Every Tool Has in Common
The Globe, Fast Maps, 3D Fast Maps, Map Makers, Tours, and Tools are different interfaces for different questions. But the foundation is the same across all of them.
The Only Platform of Its Kind
There is no other place to access interactive 3D maps of the world’s wine regions paired with reference-grade content. Lars Leicht, VP of Education for The SOMM Journal, described it as “where Google Earth meets the Master Sommelier Exam.” That description has held up.
Built on Professional GIS
SommGeo runs on the same class of geographic information systems used in urban planning, earth sciences, and professional cartography. Every layer is searchable: soil, classification, elevation, climate, producer locations. The precision isn’t incidental. It’s the engine that makes professional mapping work, turned toward wine.
Walked, Not Written From a Desk
Twelve years of fieldwork in over sixty wine regions sits underneath the content. Each region’s story was assembled on the ground, not just from a library. The regional intuition reflects time spent standing on the slope, sitting in the cellar, and tasting out of barrel with the producers.
Twenty Years of Wine, Twelve Years of Fieldwork
Greg Van Wagner’s path to wine started on a road bike in central Pennsylvania. A cycling sponsorship brought him to Boulder, Colorado, where he took a job at Frasca Food & Wine under Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey.
From 2014 to 2021, he ran the wine program at Jimmy’s, a 25-year Aspen institution, building the list to a thousand selections and collecting local and national awards. In 2018 he passed the Master Sommelier examination on his first attempt, earning the highest score of his class and the Krug Cup. He went on to build the entire beverage program at Parc Aspen from scratch. In its first year, the 1,300-selection list won a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence, and he was named Aspen’s Best Sommelier.
Off season, the work has always continued in the field. For the past twelve years, Greg has spent roughly two months a year traveling to wine and spirits regions on foot, covering over sixty regions across Europe, North America, and New Zealand. The places range from the obvious (Piemonte, Burgundy, Champagne) to the less-traveled (Jurançon, Turkey, the Baja peninsula). That research is the source material for everything on SommGeo. In 2020 he expanded into production, co-founding Ajax Cellars in partnership with winemakers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and Colorado’s Western Slope, which sharpened the practical side of the work: vineyard decisions, harvest calls, cellar choices.
SommGeo grew out of a simple frustration with how wine geography has always been taught. Flat maps and paragraphs don’t do justice to what a place actually is. Greg now speaks regularly at industry events, including the Colorado Wine Fest, the Somm Journal’s national series, and the Beneath Beaujolais campaign, using the platform to bring wine geography to life in the room.
For press inquiries, collaboration, or speaking engagements, reach out at Greg@SommGeo.com.
Words From Inside the Trade
SommGeo is used by educators, importers, trade associations, and working professionals. A few of them have put the experience into words better than we could.
Where Google Earth meets the Master Sommelier Exam.
The level of geographic detail Greg brings through SommGeo is unmatched. It’s the kind of immersive content that actually teaches a region, not just labels it.
Over 200 wine organizations across North America, Europe, and Asia have collaborated with SommGeo. Trade associations, importers, distributors, producer groups, wineries, and education programs.
Custom Platforms for the Wine Trade
Beyond the subscription platform, SommGeo builds end-to-end visualization and productivity solutions for the industry. Interactive portals for trade associations, wall-scale professional cartography for producers, immersive 3D regional experiences for importers and distributors. Custom tools, branded maps, full regional platforms. We build those too.
See It for Yourself.
Free demos for every tool type, no account required. Or start a free trial and unlock the full library.
Jump Into the Tools
Now that you know the story, here’s what’s waiting in the library.
The Globe
Every major wine region on Earth, one searchable 3D globe.
LaunchFast Maps
Searchable atlas of every appellation in mapped countries.
Browse AtlasMap Makers
Build custom maps with toggleable layers for any region.
Open Map MakersTours
Immersive 3D flyovers with reference-grade regional detail.
Take a TourSommGeo Tools
Calculators for pour cost, pairings, events, and programs.
Browse Tools