The SOMM Journal

February / March 2016

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{ SOMMjournal.com }  115 In an interview with Eric Li during the press conference, Rob Geddes, a Master of Wine from Australia, asked Li, "What are the three most common words people use to describe the wine after it's been in the iSommelier?" Li's response: "Different, bet - ter, noticeable." Some of the notable wine trade who have endorsed the iSommelier include: Dr. Alain Reynaud, founder and President of the Cercle Rive Droite Group; Heston Blumenthal, the celebrity chef from Britain who earned three Michelin stars at The Fat Duck; and Eric Zwiebel, Master Sommelier, Summerlodge Hotel in Dorset, U.K.; and Harrod's of London. So, what exactly is the iSommelier and what does it do to make a wine "differ - ent, better, noticeable"? The idea for the machine came about five years ago when Li, who admittedly was a novice collector of wine, was having dinner with a friend. They were enjoying a wine from Bordeaux's Left Bank, and agreed that it would be even bet - ter—show better—had it been decanted for several hours. Since Li is a mechanical engineer, he was inspired to come up with a solution. John Fruin, Sales and Marketing Manager for North America, first explained how the iSommelier works over a presentation in Napa. "It's a Wi-Fi–enabled decanter that oxygenates wine with highly concentrated oxygen. It isolates the oxygen from nitro - gen and carbon dioxide. Decanting times are reduced from hours to minutes, and with better results," he said. During the press conference in Guangzhou, Li spoke of his efforts to focus on the relationship between air quality and humidity, when it comes to decanting. "When we found that decanting wine is about air quality, temperature and air pres - sure," Li explained. "We focused on how to concentrate the amount of clean oxygen we could take from the air. We conducted over 10,000 experiments, and determined that while this could be done chemically, that might create harmful side effects. We devised that three filters—which are contained within the machine—were necessary to help filter out nitrogen, car - bon dioxide, dust and moisture, thereby allowing pure oxygen, up to 90 percent, to permeate the wine." It's no secret to winemakers that the introduction of pure oxygen to a young wine will mimic the effects of aging—par - ticularly important if you're making 500,000 cases and don't have the money to age all the wine in new French oak barrels. But what the iSommelier does is act as a constant agitator by gently introducing pure oxygen. Richard Morgan, Sales and Marketing Manager for Australia and New Zealand, suggests that to mimic this same action by traditional decanting, you'd have to find a sommelier willing to "shake the decanter for an hour straight." The gentle introduction of pure oxy - gen is essentially helping to soften tannin and acid, and is thereby having an impact on the wine at hand. But the impacts are not always superb, as I found out, testing a number of different wines—red and white, domestic and imported, current releases and some aged wines—and the truth is, not every wine benefits from rapid decant - ing. Trial and error is essential to determine the 'sweet spot' of a wine—at what length to decant it. One person who has tested it over several months is Ben Cummings, General Manager of Aqua Dining in Sydney, Australia. "We noticed that off the bat wines were being drunk faster, which has contributed to an uptick in sales." For most wines—a lot of current release Aussie Shiraz—roughly one and half to two minutes in the decanter produced that "sweet spot." For whites, 15 to 30 seconds, "regardless of age" seemed to be ideal. Cummings also attributes an uptick in BTG sales, because he says, a quick decant yields "a softer, more easy-drinking wine." There's also an app for the decanter, which allows you to set six different decant times and initiate a decant from your smartphone. At the time of the launch, in November of 2015, some 300,000 wines were entered into the iFAVINE database, along with their ideal decant times, and Li predicts that number will reach 2 million in 2016. Currently the iSommelier retails for $1,499 in the U.S. and comes in burgundy. Li hopes to sell ten million machines in the next ten years. In 2016, plans are already in place to announce retail partners along with the release of more colors, such as gunmetal gray, black and white. A Chinese spirit buyer eyeing color differences in Chinese baijiu, which was also tested in the decanter, producing a markedly more approachable quaff. Australia's Rob Geddes, Master of Wine.

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