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This paper presents considerations about the subject of traceability in the wine supply chain. It brings information technology issues, but also covers legal and marketing aspects, since the development of a traceability software system is supposed to fulfill food safety demands, national legislation and customer wishes. It discusses the advantages of building a system which emphasizes the voluntary aspect of traceability, specially when a consortium of producers adhere to a common system, as some European associations have done for some years now. On the legal side, it briefly discusses the demands of the European legislation about food safety, which makes traceability practices mandatory. On the marketing side, it shows the efforts of some wine producer associations around the world, which have successfully been using traceability systems with the purpose of increasing the aggregate value of their products. It also shows how traceability systems can help producers to deal with wine appellation issues, today so valuable for customers. On the technical side, the intricacies and peculiarities of the wine production process, which interfere in the software design, are pointed out. Considerations about data structures, system architecture and the use of web based software systems are also presented. It also mentions the efforts being made by Brazilian wine producers in order to increase the aggregate value of the Brazilian wine. On that aspect, traceability practices adoption is being considered as an important path to success, since its adoption will also help with appellation definition and procedures, which are an important objective to be achieved by the Brazilian wine producers.