Your Wine, Your Way

For years, you've dreamed of owning your own winery. There are just a few little things you'll probably have to do first, such as, say, quit your job, move, plant a vineyard, build a wine cellar, apply for all the necessary permits, hire some farmhands, and, um, maybe learn the science and the art behind making wine. The worst part? You'll have to put down the bottle for a sec in order to do a lot of this stuff.

"When you say 'home wine making,' people think of Lucille Ball stomping on grapes," says Greg Snell.

Isn't there an easier way? That was the question Greg Snell of San Jose, CA, asked himself when he and his wife used to visit wineries in the Napa Valley. "We'd think, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could do this ourselves?'" he says.

That was the thought process that led Snell, whose background is in semiconductors, to create the WinePod, a $2,000 home wine-making device that will go on sale in August (You can get on the waiting list to buy one at www.mywinepod.com). The self-cleaning unit, which looks like a 3-foot-tall silver bullet, operates wirelessly with your computer, alerting you to temperature changes, pH and sugar levels, and providing step-by-step instructions from professional winemakers. Currently, the device can make shiraz, zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, and merlot in as short a period as 4 months. Users need only put the grapes into it and then monitor their progress on the computer. No supermarket grapes, thank you very much; the highest quality fruit, normally available only to vineyards, will soon be available to WinePod owners through Snell's company, ProVina, Inc. Do you want a more full-bodied wine or a fruitier one? Want it slightly sweeter? Drier? The WinePod's software will prompt you when it's time to alter the chemistry in the barrel to make these choices. Computer tutorials will be plentiful, and an online forum will help people form a wine-making community. (Snell also suggests new wine makers consult literature on the subject, such as Jon Iverson's Home Winemaking Step by Step).

To create this miracle machine, Snell worked closely with TJ Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. Rodgers has long had a side career as a wine maker and winery co-owner, with his partner Valeta Massey.. (His wine label "Clos de la Tech" is a favorite among his CEO friends in Silicon Valley, he says.)

Says Rodgers: "I would often use my vineyards and wineries to show how [Cypress's] electronics - which are normally used in things like NordicTracks or iPods - were so adaptable that they could be applied to many different kinds of problems, even strange problems like figuring out how to control fermentation."

Rodgers, who lent his wine-making technology to the WinePod, now serves on ProVina's board of directors and seven other boards, including the Dartmouth Board of Trustees.

"When you say 'home wine making,' people usually think of some old Italian man with buckets all over his house, or they think of Lucille Ball stomping on grapes," says Snell. "We're trying to redefine that image."

Posted on June 05, 2006