WinePod: The Final Nail in Prohibition’s Coffin

Meet “WinePod”, a “state-of-the-art tool for small lot artisan winemaking”. Okay, so you buy this thing, and you can make your own wine at home. Sure, it lists at $4,499, and you could take all that money and buy a ton of really awesome, professionally-made wine, but what is the fun in that? So, let’s assume you buy one of these things. How does it work? You get the WinePod, which is your all in one winery. The WinePod “integrates fermentation, pressing, and aging in one, elegant unit…” So it pretty much claims to do it all. The other part of Winepod is WineCoach, a software that helps you not completely screw up your wine (which is probably like a GPS navigation system gone terribly wrong). For the grapes, you don’t need to pull out all your hydroponics equipment from the closet; you just order them from the WinePod website in 15 gallon quantities of frozen grapes. You get your choice of grapes from two vineyards: Rancho Sarco and Napa River Ranch. It is a pretty great way to do it actually, growing your own grapes would be difficult (West Hollywood Pinot Noir has a market, I’m sure of it!). WinePod

Like any consumer product, the WinePod has a slew of accessories you can purchase to help with fermentation, testing, aging, and cleaning. You know the routine, and you’re already spending $4,499 on the WinePod and who knows how much on grapes? ‘Might as well buy the accessories and do it right. Oh, wait, then there are the “consumables”, or those things that you’ll go through in one “crush” or winemaking experience. This is basically a bunch of chemicals and testing supplies. Yup, you want it. Okay, you’re set…Except for your Tonnellerie Vernou fire toasted oak barrel from Cognac, France. Yes, this is a must (no pun intended). I mean, if it is one thing the American palate loves, it’s oak, and you don’t want your wine to suck, do you? Yup, you want it, and don’t forget your “bottling kit”. You don’t want people having to drink out of your barrel, do you? You need bottles, and you need to seal the top with hot wax, because the “bottling kit” comes with it, and you must use everything in the kit. Round things out with official WinePod labels, and you have four cases of wine that cost as much as a Ford Focus, but again, who wants to buy great wine when they can order all this stuff and make it at home? If I didn’t have a weakness for beautiful women and strong drink I’d probably have three of them set up in my bedroom. Then the beautiful women and strong drink will take care of themselves.

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