Looking for something wine-related to go with your smart home assistant, streaming device and video doorbell with facial recognition software? We’ve got you covered.
Next-Gen Decanters
If you’re tired of long decanting times, today’s tech has your back. The iSommelier infuses highly concentrated oxygen into wine. The company claims that it accelerates the aeration process from one hour to just one minute. A similar device, vSpin, creates a vortex to increase oxygenation, which it claims to cut hours of decanting time down to minutes. The waiting is no longer the hardest part.
Get Your Single Pour On
Enjoying just a glass or two once presented a big problem: What do you do with the rest of the bottle? Thanks to the Coravin System, we now have a solution. The device injects a surgical-grade needle through the cork to extract wine. It then replaces the extracted vino with argon gas to keep the remaining wine fresh in the bottle. When the needle is removed, the cork reseals. Want one that has an automated pour function, an LED display and Bluetooth? You can get that, too. Wine drinking will never be the same.
Get Social
Social media isn’t just to share pictures of your pets with friends—it allows us to connect directly with wineries, vineyards, wine regions and fellow wine lovers from wherever we may be, couch included. We can also share wine experiences, both good and bad, with our social networks.
Just-for-You Wine Clubs
Websites like Bright Cellars and direct-to-consumer wineries like Winc forever changed subscription wine delivery: They deliver bottles to your door based on your taste, using sensory algorithms. Whether you take your coffee black or with sugar and cream, love mushrooms or recoil at the site of them, the preferences you give to their simple opinion surveys help tailor shipments, with the algorithm getting more precise based on your ratings.
Wine Tasting by the Numbers
In-home wine analysis is coming. French company MyOeno is making a splash in this new category, releasing a home-use scanner that analyzes absorption of visible and near-visible wavelengths of light to measure a wine’s strength, tannin content, acidity and maturity. This just-released gadget, which currently works only for red wines, is still being perfected and is surely just the beginning of technologies to come. If it does ultimately deliver the information consumers crave, it could become a wine lover’s shiny new best friend.
Smart Cellars
Remember the days when you’d keep track of your wine cellar with a spreadsheet and paper bottle hangers? Neither do we. CellarTracker has revolutionized wine inventory management. Scan barcodes to keep track of what’s where and which bottles you’ve consumed. Decide what to select by a changeable drinkability index, based on age and how many bottles you have. You can add personal notes and read communal reviews. And it’s all accessible via computer or smartphone. But if you’re looking for something more Cyberdyne Systems-era, à la Terminator, WineCab offers a wine refrigerator with a robotic arm that selects and presents your wine, all controlled through an app.
Discover more about how science is leading drinks into the future in our Wine & Tech issue.
Last Updated: May 5, 2023
