7 ms·
Wine Tech Upstart Drops Smart Bottle on a $300B Industry
- pdq 11y agoIs this "technology" just a fancy version of Franzia, aka inexpensive box wine?
- bossmojoman 11y agoBasically, But with this you get to feel less trashy than drinking from boxed wine. I guess, I dunno, I got nuthin.
- c0brac0bra 11y agoThis was my response. There are lots and lots of different boxed wine brands nowawdays, with different levels of quality and price.
- rdl 11y agoIs this really a widespread problem? A bottle of wine is...3-6 glasses. For one person, yes, that's a lot for one night, but for two people, not really. Every time I've seen one of these new packaging options, it was actually a better value to open a bottle of reasonable wine, drink 1-2 glasses, and throw away the rest. (I am fine with the vacuum pump cork thing for a day or two, too)
- pklausler 11y agoBetter solution: a smaller reusable container for storing your surplus wine overnight. Even better solution: friends.
- x0054 11y agoIf this is a serious problem, what about simply packaging Wine in 6-12 oz bottles? Single serve glass wine. This looks like a really over engineered solution to a rather simple problem.
- dragontamer 11y agoThe actual problem is that some people have too much money. The expensive, high-tech wine bottle solves the problem.
- kjdal2001 11y agoI agree. Other than maybe an giving a subconscious association with wine coolers, it seems less wasteful in addition to being simpler and easier.
- mattmanser 11y agoThey have these in larger supermarkets in the UK. Usually 1/4 of a shelf compared to the 20 odd shelves of normal wine. There's not much of a demand.
- toyg 11y agoThere would be if the wine were decent. Typically, smaller bottles are from rubbish brands and cater mostly to alcoholists. Same in Italy. I guess the main costs for wine producers are not the bottle nor the wine, so there would be little price differentiation (which is essential) and moving larger quantities of 1 format is better than moving smaller quantities of 2. A lot of producers struggle as it is, so supporting another format is hard. Still, if a cartel of producers agreed on a secondary format, pooled costs and launched a "tasting" line, maybe it would be viable.
- rhino369 11y agoBoxed wine solves this problem too. It's just that very little good wine is sold in boxes. But this start up will likely have the same problem. You aren't going to find your favorite wine in a wine version k-cup (W-cups?). Now you could argue that maybe they are going to get good wine and make good W-cups. But people are making "good" boxed wines now too. Sticking wifi on it just seems like a gimmick.
- seibelj 11y agoDo you buy a single one of these as a consumer, then put a bottle into it? Or is every bottle like this? Or do you buy a unit, then special bottles which only go into the unit?
- orky56 11y agoFrom the article: The core of the system is a decanter that sells for $199 and looks like an oversize wine bottle. Ranging in price from $15 to $50, the canisters slide into the bottom and click in place. Equipped with a bladder and special valve, the wine can be poured without any oxygen seeping in, and drinkers can swap out a Pinot noir for a Syrah by ejecting one canister and clicking in another. After an initial pour, Kuvée wines will stay fresh for about 30 days.
- ThePhysicist 11y agoSo if I understand correctly, I would not only need to buy the 200 $ "smart bottle" to drink wine, but could also only use it with specialized "wine cartridges"? Honestly, this sounds more like something that the printer industry would come up with. And it keeps getting better: Using Wifi (!), the bottle sends me information about the wine that I'm about to drink to my smartphone. You mean, like a label? And it also knows when I opened it so that I can rate the wine I'm drinking, again using Wifi? Probably I'm just getting too old for all this, but I think some things are just fine they way there are and don't need to get any "smarter". A glass bottle with a cork (be it wooden, plastic or glass) is an almost perfect solution for storing wine already: It can be produced at mass and at very low cost, can be kept for decades and can be recycled. It is also easy to transport, hard to break, (reasonably) opaque to UV light and still allows the wine inside to "breathe" (again, depending on the type of cork used). If you are really worried about your wine starting to oxidize and ferment after opening it, simply put it in the refrigerator, which will slow that process significantly. Alternatively, you could transfer the leftover quantity to a smaller "dumb" bottle (make sure it's compatible with your bottle's interface though ;)), which will minimize the amount of air in the bottle and keep the wine from going bad.
- danieltillett 11y agoI am with you all the way except for the cork. Here in Australia we have almost 100% converted over to the far superior Stelvin screw tops [1]. The only time I have to get out my corkscrew is when I drink European wine. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_cap_(wine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_cap_(wine)
- ThePhysicist 11y agoYes that's a valid point, glass or screw caps are also used increasingly in Europe now, but cork remains in heavy use especially for the pricier wines. In France (and many other countries) it would be very difficult to sell a "good" wine with a screw top, as people just expect the cork as part of the "user experience".
- 11y ago
- knightofmars 11y agoYou're not going to be able to "touch screen" a new bottle of wine if you live in any number of states that won't allow wine to be shipped to you from out of state unless the distributor is willing to pay what effectively boils down to a tariff on wine imports.
- nxzero 11y agoOf the hundreds of people I've seen drink wine, never once have I heard this as an issue.
- nickff 11y agoMany bottles are only partially consumed, which is why some wines (such as delicate dry sherries which can spoil in a matter of hours) are often packaged in half-bottles. That being said, I think the product in the OP is not a good solution.
- pinot 11y agoAs someone who actually works in the packaged beverage industry and has had a lot of wine experience... no. The last thing we're looking for is a way to make our package more expensive and limit the number of customers we can reach.
- toyg 11y agoA smaller form factor (not necessarily this particular one, which looks stupid) could give you more consumers though. Coke sells more cans than 2-L bottles, after all. If I could buy something like a half-bottle at 75% of a full one, packing good wine, I would buy loads of different ones. As it is, I know that I would overspend for a couple of glasses, because my wife doesn't drink; or I would have to limit myself to the industrial plonk, the only stuff that comes in smaller formats. So I buy a beer or soft drink instead.
- tcdent 11y ago375ml 'half bottles' have been around for a very long time. The claim from those with a discerning enough palate is that the wine develops differently inside the smaller container, and thus the 750ml is ideal. I recently tried a few canned (12 oz) wines that were surprisingly nice. Like wine, the breadth of beers sold in smaller packages is growing, but for the full variety you have to purchase larger 22oz bottles.
- glenra 11y ago> The claim [...] is that the wine develops differently inside the smaller container Is there some reason they couldn't let it "develop" an appropriate amount of time inside the larger container, then divide the result into small beer-sized containers (cans or bottles) for sale to end-consumers?
- prawn 11y agoWine is already available in half-bottles, at various restaurants and elsewhere.
- replicatorblog 11y ago
- toyg 11y agoThe real "solution" is for wine producers to sell half-bottles. It's something that most others food producers have adapted to, but somehow the upmarket wine sector is stuck on wasteful multi-person formats.
- prawn 11y agoWine producers already sell half-bottles. I imagine they prioritise what they sell more of. FWIW, my wife buys sparkling white in 200mL bottles.
- crygin 11y agoThis is bizarre. Insofar as this is solving a "problem", it's essentially solved by a Coravin, and I never thought I'd say this about the Coravin, but cheaper given that anyone who wants to do this will want to do with multiple wines (aside from overenthusiastic hobbyists, Coravins are mostly used to serve very expensive wines by the glass). EDIT: I think I misread initially -- you can use it for multiple bottles, but only their prepackaged wines? No one with this money to burn on wine accessories is going to want the narrow range of wines they're going to be able to offer.
- jasonjei 11y agoI agree. Plus, the Coravin argon cannisters are very inexpensive compared to what these will sell for.
- nickff 11y agoTrying to convince people to spend $200 + markup on each cartridge to save money on spoilage seems like a challenging proposition, especially when some (such as myself) would see this as a worse user experience. E-readers such as the Kindle seem to have succeeded at convincing a large consumer segment to make a small capital investment, but only by offering some additional features and reducing incremental costs (i.e. book prices).
- placeybordeaux 11y agoGiven the same choices of wine I would choose a card board box and a plastic bladder every time.
- kruipen 11y agoPrivate Preserve [1] is a good, inexpensive solution to this problem. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Private-Preserve-Wine-Preservation-Spray/dp/B0000DCS18 http://www.amazon.com/Private-Preserve-Wine-Preservation-Spr...
- eldude 11y agoOr buy a nitrogen or argon system[1] for about the same price ($200 v $300), but which instead is compatible with any bottle and lasts indefinitely after opening instead of 30 days. Or just buy the gas directly for $20[2], which in theory works just as well as long as you leave the bottle upright, or at least inject enough heavy gas to create a layer covering the air/liquid surface area. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Coravin-1000-Wine-System-Black/dp/B00GOH28S0 http://www.amazon.com/Coravin-1000-Wine-System-Black/dp/B00G... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Private-Preserve-Wine-Preservation-Spray/dp/B0000DCS18 http://www.amazon.com/Private-Preserve-Wine-Preservation-Spr...
- medius 11y agoAnd what's up with "$300B industry"? It's like someone opening a deli and saying they are disrupting $X00 billion food industry.
- carterehsmith 11y agoYup, exactly :) VC approach to these silly "disruptive enterprises" is statistically sound: throw 1000 pieces of shit (disruptive enterprises) on the wall, see what sticks. 95% of them will just slide down; but they won't cost too much ("grow big or fail fast"), and some % might get some traction, and hopefully cover for the other 95%. This also works with books and movies and computer games etc, it is fun.
- jt2190 11y agoMany of the comments here are about the technology, which isn't that revolutionary. Wine drinkers are highly ritualistic, especially in the U.S. Despite decades of science and engineering around better packaging, drinkers still hold on to the idea that wine must be in a corked bottle. While I'm not sure that Kuvee has found "the" solution, I think it's interesting that they're taking a "build a more luxurious bottle" approach to convincing consumers to switch.
- beedogs 11y agoI'm sure I'll see this on Internet Of Shit's twitter feed real soon.
- solnyshok 11y agodevil is, as usual, in details. while wine industry could be 300bn, wine bottle industry is significantly smaller, as in, my guess, 100 times smaller. And if you really worry about oxidation - vacuum pumps are significantly cheaper, around 20usd. and you can use those now, on any bottle. I think their small niche could be lonely restaurant goers, who would appreciate fancy bottle and taste without having to buy it for 200$