The Grapevine

Wine Industry News – 4/11/16

April 11th, 2016

The Nomacorc ads that have been following me around the internet for the past few weeks finally worked their magic. Not that I’ve bought any of their product, but I did find some interesting info on the eternal bottle-closure debate.

(By the way, those ads following you around are part of something called remarketing. Show interest in a product or service and advertisers will pay to stay in front of you. I guess relevant ads beat ones I don’t care about, but they still haven’t quite mastered how to determine relevance …) [level-members]

My search uncovered this San Francisco Examiner article from 2015 about the company and their mission, as well as a Seattle Times article pointing out that Washington state wine program students and researchers always use screw caps.

It’s interesting that the screw caps, through the choice of the plastic liner, can be made to allow in as much or as little oxygen as you desire. Much more precise control seems a better choice than leaving things to chance with real cork. (Though the “agglomerate corks” – those made with ground up cork scraps – seem as if they’d be much easier to produce consistently.)

A Solution In Search of a Problem
And then there’s this and this. I’m pretty geeky and I still have never thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if my wine was WiFi enabled?” Guess I’d need to be more of a gadget guy.

Kuvée is replacing “antiquated paper labels” with a bottle that does everything but remove the wine stains from your tablecloth. Still, it is enjoyable to see how people think about applying technology. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should …

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