Winepod: Wine Geek Meets, Well, Geek
Forget the bucolic scene of the wizened old French winemaker with his dusty beret, stubble on his chin, and a cigarette plugged into the corner of his mouth. Think of what a child of R2D2 and your Sub-Zero refrigerator would be like. Well, it would be like a WinePod.
The Wine Geek Part
The WinePod people tell us that, “The WinePod is a state-of-the-art tool for small lot artisan winemaking. The WinePod integrates fermentation, pressing, and ageing in one elegant unit yet it is simple and easy to use. The WinePod controls the heat of fermentation and maintains appropriate ageing temperature using electronically controlled thermoelectric heating and cooling. Your wine ferments and ages in a variable-capacity stainless steel tank with an integrated wine press.”
The Geek Part
The WinePod collects and transmits fermentation and temperature data wirelessly to your PC where our software offers winemaking guidance and manages your processes and records. You access this info through the WinePod Dashboard. The Dashboard includes a virtual notebook, a video screen to view tutorials and post your own clips to document your winemaking, and real-time conditions to monitor daily data on your wine’s fermentation.
The Wine Part
While this ain’t grandpa’s basement wine,
I’ll bet that your homemade plonk may not compare favorably to, for
instance, the 1996 Cheval Blanc (St.-Emilion), offered by Sherry-Lehmann Wine & Spirits, on Madison Avenue in New York City, for only $4,470.00 per case.
Is it good? Robert Parker likes it:
Quintessentially elegant, with a complex nose of black fruits, coconut, smoke, and pain grille, this medium-bodied wine exhibits sweet fruit on the attack, substantial complexity, and a lush, velvety-textured finish.
Will he ever say that about one of your wines? (But that’s not the point, is it? Because at our hearts, we’re all do-it-our-selvers, aren’t we?)
Buy It Now. (Well, not quite now.)
Just like buying Bordeaux futures (the 2005 Cheval Blanc
is $10,200 per case) you will have to buy your WinePod as a future
because, yes, there is a waiting list for the 2007 vintage, I mean,
model.
You can reserve your 2007 model WinePod right now …The price is US$3,499.00. Shipments for people joining the waiting list now are projected to be May 2007. We will contact you in early 2007 to secure a deposit to maintain your delivery date.
Honey, is it wine yet?