Nantes, France-based wine lifestyle company 10-Vins has launched the D-Vine, a premium personal wine dispensing machine, into Singapore.

Wine technology has gone a long way, but aside from the more commercial-grade Enomatic machines used in bars and wine retail shops the only recent fancy device used for extracting and pouring wine suitable for a more personal basis has been the Coravin. Until 10-Vins came in with the D-Vine.

Founded by co-founders Thibaut Jarrousse, Jerome Pasquet and Luis Da Silva – all who are engineers by training – who envisioned using technology to better assist wine consumers in tasting and appreciating wines.

The concept for D-Vine is relatively simple, and inspired by the Nespresso capsule coffee machine. You simply insert a 10-Vins 100ml wine flacon – essentially a large test tube filled with wine – into the machine and within a minute or so it will dispense the wine. What basically happens is that D-Vine reads the RFID tag on the flacon to recognise what wine it is in order to serve it in an optimum serving condition, i.e. aerated and at the right temperature for the style. In fact you can even use an NFC-enabled smartphone to scan the RFID tagged to the flacon which will direct you to D-Vine’s website for additional content on the wine you are drinking such as tasting tips by an in-house oenologist to wine pairing advice.

“The idea of D-vine grew from my frustrations in getting a glass of good wine with the perfect oxygenation and temperature when I needed it. With new technology introduced every day to revolutionise and improve the quality of people’s lives, we felt it was a right time to innovate wine consumption habits and challenge traditional serving methods,” shares Thibaut Jarrousse, CEO of 10-Vins.

“Our objective is pure and simple: everyone deserves a glass of perfect wine – whenever they want it. Coupled with the Internet of Things that is changing the way we communicate, we even leveraged RFID technology to bring our patrons unprecedented access to online wine knowledge – now by the flacons,” he adds.

D-Vine Premium Pack

Of course, wine connoisseurs by now would recognise that the D-Vine wine delivery system isn’t perfect. For one the D-Vine cannot be used for bubbly. Nor can it be used for a consumer’s existing bottled wine collection, so that precious vintage bottle of Penfolds Grange needs to stay in the wine cellar until the right occasion calls for it. It also takes about a minute to cycle before the machine is ready for the next pour, which is not a problem for personal use but may be a limiting factor in a party or commercial setting.

But the biggest problem is that 10-Vins offers a limited selection of just about 30 different French-only wines at this point of time, even if they do encompass most famous French wine regions such as Bordeaux, Rhone, Alsace, and Loire. However that number is likely to grow by the week and encompass wines from other regions in the very near future, as D-Vine’s wine selection committee – including their in-house oenologist Beatrice Dominé – continually pick more wines to offer consumers.

The best use case for D-Vine for the moment is actually in hospitality – to be exact, in luxury penthouses or presidential suites in hotels, for example. In that setting it’s pretty much the perfect personal wine butler at just a touch of a button.

Singapore is the first country in Asia to retail the D-Vine wine dispensing system. 50 units will be currently available for sale till end of 2016 at S$1,790 each, after which it will go for $1,950 per unit from 2017. The 100ml wine flacons can be purchased separately in bundles of six, 12 and 24, and sell for S$9.00 to S$39.00 each.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.