Nov 22, 2021

How Pay-Per-Taste Technology Is Democratizing Wine Tasting

Not only do self-serve wine dispensers lack implicit bias, they also make rare wines more widely available

by Maria C. Hunt Nov 16, 2021, 9:31am PST

A bottle of the Harlan family’s Promontory, one of Napa Valley’s new generation of cult cabs, sells for $1,000 and up — if you have the connections and patience to even find a bottle of the highly allocated wine. But at the Oakville Wine Merchant, a chic wine retailer in Napa Valley, anyone over 21 can pay $47 for a one-ounce taste. It’s just one of the selections on the 100-point wine wall, which automatically dispenses servings of wines that have received perfect scores from critics, along with rare cabernet sauvignons including Harbison Estate, Hundred Acre, and Bond’s Vecina. Last year, it was selling $65 tastes of the Flight by Screaming Eagle, the ne plus ultra of Napa Valley cult wineries. With the swipe of a card, visitors can taste wines starting at $3 from a dozen Wine Stations focused on key Napa Valley wine regions.

Read the full EATER SF article here...

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