Sadly we missed this one at CES 2019 this month with our busy schedules, but we at least got wind of it and gave it a little research to see what the hype was about. The company MyWah has developed a wine dispensing machine called EDGAR and gave it the title of “wine butler” for good reasons.
This machine allows you to store up to 20 bottles worth of wine in it, where it then serves the wine to the user by the glass, each time at the perfect condition (like temperature, for example). Instead of bottles though, you keep it stocked with up to 3 bags of wine, each 5 liters in volume, allowing for a total of 15 liters total capacity (aka, the volume of 20 bottles worth of wine).
Each wine is served at its best temperature and aeration so that the customer can experience each glass the right way. It can be remote managed via an app which delivers analytics and everything, so the restaurant can keep tabs on the machine as well as figure out their top performers. It uses RFID chips in the bag to communicate with the machine so that it knows what each wine is, and the bags can supposedly last up to 2 months in the machine once they have been opened (now that’s awesome).
Obviously you can clearly tell this machine is targeted for restaurants and not the home, and they are looking to get into the US market. MyWah hails from France and attended CES with a booth located within the French section of Eureka Park, where startups from around the world are looking for partners and other ways of getting into the market here.
Hopefully the company eventually explores consumer options for single bottles of wine, as being able to walk into your kitchen and simply grab a single glass of wine without having to worry about the rest would be amazing. I know a number of us here would consider it, especially if they found a way to work with normal bottles (or at leas average bottle types), so that you can simply grab any bottle of the shelf. For now we will have to wait and see (unless someone else beats them to the punch). Nonetheless, EDGAR looks like a fine product and if the cost of the bags do not outweigh the cost of stocking bottles and hiring someone to pour them, restaurants might just want to give it a try.
For more information, you can visit their website here.
