Blending art and science

To deliver a truly personalised wine blending experience, we first had to understand the relationship between consumer behaviour and the chemistry of wine.

We began by collecting data on why consumers select a particular wine and how they describe its qualities. We then analysed the chemical composition of different wines in order to discover what imparts their most distinctive characteristics. Putting these two things together allowed us to create a unique flavour algorithm – a formula for the perfect blend.

Intuitive ‘design your wine’ app

Using our expertise in user experience and user interface design, we developed a simple app that allows the user to specify their perfect wine based on familiar characteristics – light to full-bodied, soft to fiery and dry to sweet. This intuitive interface, mixed with our flavour algorithm, allows Vinfusion to then dispense the perfect blend.

Based on these preferences, the app is also able to make a personalised recommendation – for example, “If you like this blend, you should try a Rioja.” In this way, Vinfusion encourages consumers to explore the world of wine and equips them to make more informed decisions in the future.

Powerful data

Vinfusion is about more than just delivering the perfect glass of wine for any dish or occasion. Powerful data capture and analysis capabilities – including facial recognition software that recognises consumers’ reactions to their chosen wine – allow Vinfusion to record which wines are more or less popular and which blends are most and least successful.

This opens the door to deep insight linking consumer preferences to factors like location, time of day, concurrent food promotions and even external influences such as the weather.

Form and function

Vinfusion’s dispense hardware is capable as well as eye-catching, efficiently blending and aerating the wine simultaneously. The novel valve-free system is both hygienic and low maintenance, while its sleek design and illuminated blending chamber add an element of theatre to the experience.

The Vinfusion project uses technology to address two key challenges that businesses face – firstly, delivering new and engaging experiences to the consumer and, secondly, gaining a better understanding of consumer behaviour.

The elegant design of the dispense unit incorporates several practical features such as the aeration of the blend in the mixing chamber and valve-free operation.

The control app provides an intuitive way to select a wine while, using off-the-shelf technologies, we can observe and interpret customer reactions at the point of dispense.

Making Vinfusion a reality required input from a disparate array of disciplines. We brought together experts in dispense, mechanical and electrical engineering, fluid handling and UX design to create not just a product but a complete experience.

Understanding the consumer

To understand consumer behaviour, we ran more than 160 tasting sessions, for which many of our own staff willingly volunteered! This yielded a huge amount of very noisy data – inevitable when dealing with something as subjective as taste – which required deep analysis to extract meaningful trends.

Developing the formula

Wine is a complex beverage – the type and blend of grapes, the geography, vintage, body and fruitiness all contribute to the flavour. And while consumers’ perception of flavour may be linear (for example, sweet to dry), chemical composition is not. A dry wine and a sweet wine blended in equal measure will not produce a wine in the ‘middle ground’ between the two. The subtle aroma compounds that give wines their character can be easily obliterated during blending if unsuitable combinations are chosen.

We used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to analyse the aroma compounds in dozens of wines in order to find compatible varieties to blend. Then, through tasting panels and statistical data processing, we were able to determine the ratios of our ‘Eigen Wines’ needed to produce distinctive and even steps in flavour throughout the flavour space.

Delivering the demonstrator fast

Vinfusion was little more than an idea in July 2016. With the aim of presenting a fully functioning demonstrator at an event in November, we quickly assembled a team of chemists, physicists, mechanical, electrical and software engineers, fluidics experts and user experience (UX) and product designers.

All data collection and market intelligence gathering was complete by mid-September and, by early November, Vinfusion was ready to dispense – that’s just four months from concept to demonstrator.