Toss the Cork: New Tech Keeps Wine Fresh for 30 Days
Wine drinkers can sip slowly thanks to a new hi-tech bottle that keeps the beverage fresh for up to 30 days.
“The Kuvée bottle lets you put in any of these capsules and pour it,” CEO and co-founder Vijay Manwani told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
“You don’t have to argue about drinking red or white on any night, you can have both of them.”
Manwani discussed how the wine is kept so fresh.
“There is a lining on the inside; As you pour the wine, the lining collapses on the wine and you never see oxidation.”
Manwani then explained how the idea for Kuvée came about.
“I’m not a wine snob, I’m a wine geek. What that means is I’ve been collecting wine forever but I’ve also been a student of wine forever. And three years ago, I was taking a course and I was tasting a lot of wines blind and I was really frustrated by how quickly it would spoil. I realized if I could build a system where people could drink many wines on the same night with friends and compare notes that would be the fastest way to learn about wine. That was the inspiration for Kuvée,” Manwani said.
After that, he sought out funding and got the project off the ground.
“We went out and raised roughly $6 million and the project has been on for roughly two years,” said Manwani.
But it doesn’t end there; The system is also Wi-Fi connected.
“There is a benefit for the consumer that they can drink wine by the glass and there’s a benefit for the winemaker or the winery where they can tell a better story because it’s a better marketing platform,” Manwani said.
The information collected by the bottles could be valuable for the winemakers as well.
“They are starved for consumption data. They don’t have an understanding of the customer. So this is bringing them actually up to the Internet age where they can market to the customers better if they had a better understanding of what they were consuming,” said Manwani.
On the decision to price the product at $199, Manwani said, “We did some quantitative analysis on what pricing would be affordable. We were told to keep it under $200,” Manwani continued, “for people who have household incomes of about $100K to $125K, that would be a good price for them.”
Manwani also explained the differences in how red and white wines change once they are opened.
“I think red wine has more complexity, so it shows change faster and evolution faster, but it doesn’t necessarily spoil faster. When you put any wine in the fridge it keeps better. So, if you put your red wine in the fridge it will keep better. People don’t keep it [red] in the fridge because it takes longer to come to drinking temperature,” Manwani said.