Yes, you can open a bottle of wine, pour out a glass (or a giant glass), and store the rest in the fridge to keep it fresh for a few days. A lot of the time, though, that bottle ends up getting stale and thrown out, wasting an otherwise decent batch of fermented grape juice. The Albicchiere offers a better solution.
Billed as a “smart wine dispenser,” it’s a countertop appliance designed to house a single bottle of wine and preserve it, so you can enjoy a single glass while making the whole bottle last a whole lot longer. That way, you can enjoy an entire bottle of vino by the glass whenever you feel like it instead of being forced to either drink an entire bottle in a short time or put it all to waste.
The Albicchiere is a wine preservation and dispenser system that allows you to enjoy a single bottle one glass at a time for up to six months. That’s right, a whole half year. The appliance will preserve your wine while keeping it chilled, too, so you can keep it on the countertop permanently, instead of having it take up space in the fridge. A companion app allows you to set the exact temperatures you want the wine to be kept in (anywhere from 4 degrees to 20 degrees Celsius), so every glass you pour out of the dispenser’s tap is as fresh and as cold as you want it to be.
Do note, you don’t actually open a bottle and put it inside the appliance. According to the outfit, that’s because bottles leave empty space inside between the contents and whatever’s covering the bottle, making it possible for oxygen to get in and come in contact with the wine, which is what will eventually ruin its taste. Instead, you’re supposed to pour the wine inside a proprietary wine bag that’s designed to let the wine out without allowing air in, leaving no room for any amount of air to get in.
The Albicchiere comes with a button on top that you can press to pour out a single glass, although you can also activate it using the companion app, in case you want to pour out a glass while you’re in the living room (just make sure you left a glass right under the nozzle). It also has a large color display right on the unit, which shows you pertinent details about its operation, such as the things you need to do during initial setup or the current temperature of the wine inside.
While you can simply pour your own bottle of wine inside one of the bags, the outfit also sells a variety of wines already pre-packaged in them. If you go this pre-packaged route, you can simply take the wine out of the box and put it inside the appliance. The device will scan the bag for the type of wine and automatically set the temperature to the ideal cooling level for that specific variant, although you do have the option to override it via the companion app.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Albicchiere. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at €249.