A few years back, three 20-something wine enthusiasts were spending a lot of time visiting vineyards, but when they bought the wine back home it just didn’t taste the same. They sought expert advice – and discovered that temperature and aeration of wine are worth 50% of the quality.
How to serve wine in perfect conditions?
They began trying to recreate the experiences they’d enjoyed with winegrowers, who served wine in perfect conditions. The experience proved incredibly complicated – and the only thing they could find to help them was the carafe. For example, a great white Burgundy wine should be served at 12-13 degrees Celsius with a decanting time of three to four hours. To create the ideal tasting conditions, you would have to decant the wine into a carafe several hours before tasting, put it back into the fridge to cool at around six degrees, then remember to take it out in time to warm up... Nobody does that, not even professionals!
D-Vine, the machine designed for wine
Enter the D-Vine. Like a coffee machine, the device works with capsules. 10-Vins has sourced a vast array of excellent wines, which come packaged in 10 cl bottles (the equivalent of a glass) with an RFID chip fixed to them. The D-Vine reads the chip and serves the wine in ideal conditions in less than a minute. Pass your smartphone or tablet over the chip, and the winemaker and their oenologist will pop up to tell you more about the wine you’re enjoying.
Developing temperature and ventilation functions that could both heat and cool required a lot of investment in R&D. Coincubated by Audencia in Nantes and HEC in Paris, the startup also sought input from major engineering firms and the prestigious École Centrale de Nantes.
At the same time, 10-Vins began selling 10 cl bottles of wine to test and establish their market and distribution. Once the D-Vine was developed, they already had 6,000 customers enjoying fine wines from Châteauneuf du Pape, to Bordeaux Supérieur, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classé, Riesling Grand Cru and Sauternes Second Grand Cru Classé.
10-Vins raised €45,000 on crowdfunding platform Ulule in December 2014, three times their target. Delivery of the first D-Vines came a year later – just in time to win two media awards at the Consumer Electronics Show 2016. These are Ubergizmo’s “Best Of CES” and “Startup Of The Year” by Tech.co.
While most of their machines are sold directly to consumers, 10-Vins are eying the B2B market where they see huge demand from hotels.
In all, 10-Vins has raised a total of €4 million through a second crowdfunding campaign and further private investment. They’re looking for an additional €5 million to improve manufacturing, bring down the €890 price tag, and expand internationally.
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