Your Virtual Sommelier Awaits | Introducing Plum Wine

An appliance that acts as a virtual sommelier? Wait until you see what this is all about!

It’s been a big week as I had some exciting news to share. I have been selected as one of ten designers to be part of Plum Wine Hereo’s Design Council. As the only Canadian in the group, this is a huge honour and I am truly humbled to be part of such an amazing group.

My Wine History

Well, this is going to be short! While the Mister and I enjoyed drinking wine, we really weren’t serious wine drinkers. That is until our good friends introduced us to a whole new world.

Three years ago our good friends, who know a lot about wine, hosted a fun event at their home. It was during this event that we were treated to six different bottles of wine. Our task was as follows:

• Guess the grape/wine.
• Determine where the wine was from.
• Estimate the price of the bottle.
• Rank the wine from number 1 to 5.

The first year, the experiment was to see if more expensive wine tasted better. Would you be surprised if I told you the most expensive wine was ranked number one by all of us? The Mister and I were starting to see, taste, and appreciate the craftsmanship of good wine vs the craftsmanship fantastic wine.

It was such a fun event, that our friends hosted again the following year. While I don’t have the list of wine’s we tried, I do remember a very yummy white white from France. Smooth as butter.

This year, of course, they could not host it and we really did miss it! We miss seeing people, we miss our friends, and we miss having a great glass of wine with friends (ok, maybe more than a glass – don’t judge).

And this was our introduction to enjoying the experience of wine drinking.

Meet Plum

Last year at KBIS 2020, Plum swept the top awards winning Best of KBIS – Kitchen Gold” and DesignBites “Biggest Bite’ Award. So let’s take a look at what Plum, your Virtual Sommelier, has to offer.

The Appliance that Packs a Punch

Virtual Sommelier

Before we look at the true guts of Plum, let’s first quickly visit the term sommelier. As defined by Wikipedia,

A sommelier (/ˈsɒməljeɪ/ or /sʌməlˈjeɪ/; French pronunciation: ​[sɔməlje]), or wine steward, is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, normally working in fine restaurants, who specializes in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food pairing.

Wikipedia

Imagine…having your own sommelier in your home. Now you can, with the magic of Plum.

Plum Preservation

Plum is a wine preservation ‘appliance’ that preserves wine for 90 days at the exact temperature the winemaker intended.

There is an integrated, refillable argon canister that will preserve up to 150 bottles!

AI

Artificial intelligence in increasingly making its way into your homes.

• “Hey Google…”
• “Alexa, play me…”

Sound familiar?

Plum offers AI in a whole new light. This software driven appliance provides you with your personal virtual sommelier in your own home.

Plum automatically identifies the vintage, varietal, region and winery, displaying the label on the touchscreen to create a virtual tasting room to explore.

Plum Wine

There are two HD Cameras located inside the Plum unit that will identify the wine you have chosen. Not only that, it will provide you with the history of the grape, what you can pair the wine with, and the region where the wine is from.

What I think is a super cool feature is that IF you ever had an issue with your unit, you contact Plum and with your permission, they can access your unit. With cameras inside, and this appliance being software driven, Plum can trouble shoot for you! Freaky and cool all wrapped into one.

No More Waste

For wine drinkers like the Mister and I, there are times where we invest in a good bottle of wine, then find we may not drink it all in one sitting. While it’s not often, it does happen. And we certainly don’t want to waste it!

With Plum, as I mentioned above, Plum uses an integrated, refillable argon canister to preserve your wine for up to 90 days.

Design Options

Plum offers two ways to include this in your home.

Counter Option

This is most likely the easiest way to incorporate a Plum into your home. The unit itself is 15″ wide X 17″ high X 20.5″ deep. It weighs a total of 65 pounds and requires the use of one electrical outlet (110/220V – 50/60 Hz). Simple find a space in your home and plug it in!

When I first got our Plum, we placed it in our bar downstairs.

We also just had a Plum installed in one of our latest projects.

Integrated Option

While I enjoyed our Plum downstairs, the Mister and I don’t go down there often. As such, I did a little arm-twisting and have convinced him to integrate it into our kitchen.

I love that fact that Plum offers two different trim kits – black or stainless steel.

Since Plum can fit into a 24″ wide cabinet, I decided to reconfigure our cleaning cabinet to make room for Sammy (yes – that is what I have called my Plum. Sammy, the Sommelier). And yes, I opted for the Plum over my brooms. Wise choice wouldn’t you say?

Wine Essentials

Part of being on the Plum Wine Heros Design Council is learning. And what better way to enjoy a great glass of wine than drinking it out of a proper wine glass?

I’ve rounded up some of my favourites and ones that I’ve learned about so that you too can enjoy a great glass of wine.

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