If you love to collect wine and are frustrated by old world methods like paper journaling or tracking your collection on an Excel spreadsheet, a company by the name of Media Access Systems has created what may be the ultimate in 21st century wine collection tracking. Enter the eSommelier.
The eSommelier is described by Media Access Systems as a wine management server. This device, targeted at oenophiles and collectors, sports as its primary interface a 15-inch touch-screen display. This display works in conjunction with a 120 GB hard drive to provide access to a database of information on over 150,000 wines from all over the globe.
The eSommelier lets a user catalog each bottle of wine in their personal collection via a range of criteria, including country, region, variety, winery and vintage. This information can be inputed via the touch screen interface or an attached USB or PS2 keyboard. Once entered, it is cataloged into the owner’s database, along with a user selected rating and tasting notes if so desired.
The eSommelier Touch Screen
Wine cataloged into the eSommelier can be tracked in one’s collection by the device recalling the exact location of a specific bottle in a wine storage area. Bottles of wine, with an optional bar code scanner and printer, can have a unique bar code printed out and attached for easier inventory management. A bottle of wine scanned by the scanner is essentially permanently checked out of one’s collection without needing to do anything more via the touch screen.
For those desiring to access their wine collection inventory through a home network or over the Internet, the eSommelier has an integrated Ethernet port. One can access an interface which lets him or her search by the criteria entered when a bottle was cataloged. It is also through this connectivity that operating software and wine database updates are pushed into the eSommelier’s memory to keep things current.
More information on the eSommelier can be found at the product’s Web site.
