Babbage | Wine and technology

In iPad veritas

Technology to make wine-drinking ever more enjoyable

By J.P. | LONDON

EARLIER in the week, this Babbage and two friends decided to patronise a relatively fancy French restaurant in Covent Garden. Spur of the moment as the choice was, our party had no reservation. Predictably, it took some cajoling by a pretty, francophone colleague before the indomitable maître d' yielded and seated us in the lounge to await the precious table. Dedicated oenophiles (which is just a fancy word for wino), we gave short shrift to the aperitif menu and immediately asked for the wine list.

"Here is the Bible," whispered a waitress as she carefully proffered a rather hefty, leather-bound tome. And indeed it brought vinous deliverance in spades. With more than 2,000 bottles on offer, picking just one proved no mean feat, even considering most were beyond the means of humble hacks. (Later, it transpired that the restaurant has been honoured by the Wine Spectator, another oenological bible, for having one of the finest wine lists in the world.) Too proud to seek the sommelier's expert advice, we busted out our BlackBerrys and iPhones. However, this way of identifying the right tipple turned out to be rather tedious. If only, I thought to myself, somebody had come up with an interactive wine list.

Well, as the New York Times reports, somebody has. Bone's, a revered Atlanta steakhouse, now greets its diners with iPads whose touch screen makes light work of searching for varietals, vintages, vintners and not least prices. Aficionados can instantly defer to gurus of the trade, like Robert Parker, whose reviews and ratings are also to hand. All this has some sommeliers trembling in their speckless black shoes. Others seek consolation in the fact that an iPad can't open a bottle and assess whether or not its contents are up to snuff. At least the proprietors have something to smile about. Wine sales at Bone's jumped by 11 percent per diner in the two weeks following the iPads' introduction, compared with the previous three weeks.

Modern technology has impinged on wine making for years, often to traditionalists' dismay. For instance, automatic grape presses met with scepticism, at least before vintners grasped that they are superior to human feet in just about every way. However, the retail end of the business has been largely immune to innovation. Although some establishments embraced the interactive wine list as early as 2001, most have stuck to the familiar sommelier-helps-choose-bottle-from-book model.

Theatrical appeal notwithstanding, this has some serious drawbacks. First, the sommelier's thespian skills may be found wanting. More importantly, unless you are willing to settle for a wine sold by the glass, which can be decent but never great, you need to splash out on a whole bottle. This may mean having to part with a wodge of cash. It also limits culinary choices. Imagine that one in the party desires a cognac-flambéed loin of venison while the other would rather a poached cod fillet with lemon sauce. Finding a wine to match both these disparate dishes verges on the impossible. A white normally wouldn't stand up to the game, which calls for a tannin-rich red. As we explain elsewhere, there is the off-chance that such reds will work with seafood. However, more often than not they produce a metallic "fishy" taste. This is because besides tannins, most red wines contain iron, which reacts with the unsaturated fatty acids found in fish to unpalatable effect.

Unsurprisingly, no restaurateur in his right mind would crack open a pricey vintage and agree to be paid for a single glass of it. This is because once a bottle is open, the wine begins to oxidise and, as many readers would have doubtless discovered, soon turns to vinegar. Since restaurant owners cannot count on some other customers to quaff the rest of the bottle before the beverage sours, charging for the bottle is the only sensible thing to do.

Enter another nifty recent widget: the wine dispensing system, produced by companies like Cruvinet or Enomatic. These are cabinets which hold anywhere between four and 120 bottles that, once opened, are topped up with inert gases like nitrogen or argon to keep the oxygen out. An improvement on the manual vacuum pump found in many households, the swanky dispensers help keep wine fresh for up to several weeks, though some sommeliers contend that no amount of nitrogen will protect an older wine. (Apparently, Pinot Noirs are especially vulnerable to oxygen's perfidious ways.)

Our restaurant was not equipped with either a Cruvinet or an Enomatic. Eventually, the most wine-savvy member of our trio suggested we plump for the 2007 Quinta do Crasto Old Vines Reserva from Portugal's Douro region. And a fine choice it was, despite being iPad-unaided. After the gentlest of swirls, the buttery brioche bouquet gave way to a blast of dark fruit and sawdust. Sipped, the near-purple nectar enveloped the palate, leaving a long, lush finish. It worked wonders with my foie gras and a colleague's pink duck breast. Our French-speaking friend had cod. She stayed off the claret for the main course.

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