Fed up of dredging out crumbly dry cork in your wines? No corkscrew handy? Such are the First World problems we face.
But here’s something to toast to. D-Vine wants to take the fuss out of drinking your glass of wine, while upping the chic factor.
What Nespresso did for coffee — courtesy of George Clooney — D-Vine hopes to emulate for wine consumers.
The packaging is reminiscent of Nespresso’s higher-end machines. A sleek black box reminiscent of a coffee maker — and simple to use. Push the flacon of wine into the top receptacle, and, within a minute, the D-Vine whirrs into action, delivering a perfectly aerated and chilled wine.
Since making an impression on the European market in 2015, winetech start-up 10-Vins, the makers of D-Vine, is now casting its gaze at the Asian market.
“People want variety, they want convenience, and they want their wine to be perfect. These are the basic needs of the consumer,” explains Jerome Pasquet of 10-Vins, who set up the company together with Thibaut Jarrousse.
Whether this will become as popular as a Nespresso machine will depend on several factors. The cost is much higher, at $1,800 for the machine, and there is currently a limited selection of 22 red and white wines from France.
Creating A Wine Culture
Marketing will also be key. Can 10-Vins find the equivalent of the Clooney factor to help send machines into the desirous clutches of swooning customers?
Then there is the matter of the limited selection and the cost of this set up. Coffee capsules are in the region of $1. Still cheaper than a cup of coffee.
Each 100ml flacon of wine ranges in price from $9 to $39. A bottle of wine contains 750ml of wine.
We did a volume-for-volume cost comparison of a flacon of wine with the same wine in a bottle on wine-searcher.com. Since it takes 7.5 flacons to make up a bottle, we found the cheaper wines would cost three times more, while the more expensive St Julien, would be double the price.
| Wine | Cost per 100ml flacon (€) | One bottle equivalent (750ml) cost (€) | Cost per bottle
(€) |
| Cotes du Bourg | 3 | 22.5 | 9 |
| Riesling Grand Cru “Saering” | 7 | 52.5 | 17 |
| St Julien Grand Cru Classe | 16 | 120 | 65 |
(Prices compared on wine-searcher.com in France.)
The advantage of D-Vine’s process is the fact that you’ll be getting perfectly delivered wine each time, without the bottle being stoppered and the wine disturbed with each pouring.
The D-Vine achieves this with the aid of technology. The type of wine is programed into the RFID chip embedded in the wine flacons, and the D-Vine automatically reads and dispenses the optimal glass of wine.
Thus far, 600 units have been sold in Europe, and 10-Vins aims to appeal to more than just a niche market of wine enthusiasts. In years to come, they feel that the D-Vine could be as popular as Nespresso machines.
