If you’ve seen the movie Sideways, the thing you probably remember most is Paul Giamatti proclaiming “I am NOT drinking any f–king Merlot!” Perhaps Paul wouldn’t have been so angry if he had Aveine, a smart aerator, to let his wine breathe properly.
Coming soon from France, Aveine is a bottle-top device that removes the need for decanting by injecting tiny bubbles into your wine to aerate it as your pour.
According to Wine Spectator, “Exposing wine to air does two things: it triggers oxidation and evaporation… Wine is made up of hundreds of compounds, and with aeration, usually the volatile undesirable compounds will evaporate faster than the desirable, aromatic and flavorful ones.” So it’s not snobbery, it’s science.
But according to Aveine co-founder, Matthieu Robert, not all aeration is created equal. Depending on the type and age of the wine, too much or too little aeration can have a negative impact on a wine’s taste. This is where Aveine claims its technology can help.
There are two parts to Aveine. First is a mobile app, which you use to scan the label of your wine. The app talks with the aerator, which affixes to the top of your wine bottle. Based on the vintage and varietal information scanned with the app, the aerator automatically aerates wine as you pour it. The bubbles it shoots in create more surface area for the wine to interact with. The result, Robert told me, will make your wine “rounder and have more taste in your mouth,” as opposed to drinking it straight out of the bottle.
Right now, Aveine has just 10,000 bottles of wine in its catalogue, which is a pretty small number considering how much wine is produced around the world. As more people use the product, the company will use that data in its machine learning algorithms as well as expert help from sommeliers to update and expand its library.
Aveine will be available for pre-order on Indiegogo on March 28th. Early backers can pick up the Aveine for $100, though it will eventually cost $200. Robert said that the first batch of Aveine’s will be delivered this September.
Based in Paris, France, Aveine was founded in July 2016. It has raised a million euros in seed funding and currently has fifteen employees. After Aveine completes its Indiegogo campaign it will use that market data (where were people buying from, how many did they buy, etc.), to help determine its next fundraising strategy.
For those hoping Aveine is some type of philosopher’s stone, Robert warned me “Aveine won’t change crappy wine into good wine.” But maybe it will mellow out the obnoxious oenophile in your life.
