PRODUCT REVIEW: QelviQ, Your Personal Sommelier

When you find the ideal Christmas or Hanukkah gift for a wine lover, no matter what time of the year it is, you want to move on it. Add it to your Amazon saved for later list, price-watch on big retail websites, or tally it on your on-going Notes gift list. We all have that wine connoisseur in our life who owns every bottle they could possibly want, their glassware collection is overflowing, and they have all the latest gadgets...until now! The QelviQ is a revolutionary suite of products: an expertly designed personal sommelier in your pocket, and cooling device that is remotely programmed to bring any wine to the ideal serving temperature.

I had the opportunity to get my hands on the QelviQ for an extensive test drive of its features. The App is very easy to use with intuitive user design! You pair the Cooling Unit to the App via bluetooth, snap a quick photo of the wine you want to cool down, and within 5 minutes of opening the box, the QelviQ Personal Sommelier will tell you the optimal temperature and give you a suggested cooling time. A full bottle of wine, on average, cools at 3 degrees Celcius or 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit per 20 minutes.

Without fail, 99% of all wine is served either too cold or too warm. QelviQ solves this problem thanks to its accompanying App’s knowledge of ideal serving temperatures and the performant cooling technology within the device. Over 350,000 wines have been catalogued into its rolodex to make expert recommendations on serving temperature, as well as ideal food pairings for each individual wine. A 120-Watt powered engine allows the QelviQ to use Peltier technology, delivering the fastest cooling in the world without using ice or water. This eliminates bottle shock, avoiding the potential for muted flavors or a disjointed experience caused by aggressive cooling.

Three unique key functions work together to deliver the optimal wine drinking experience: The first function is dedicated to identifying the ideal temperature for each wine, based on grape variety, terroir and style. A comprehensive library of wines built within the app helps advise on temperature, and three thermal sensors read the temperature of the wine at every stage, ensuring the bottle is cooled to exactly the right point.

The second function of the QelviQ system is to provide food pairings tailored to each wine. Food pairings can be selected based on cuisines or type of meal or food (Wine2Food); conversely QelviQ also provides recommended wines to pair based on the dish or cuisine (Food2Wine). The QelviQ guidance is drawn from a collection of sommeliers based around the world to help answer wine-related questions and provide pairing advice. The third function helps manage a personal wine inventory, allowing users to maintain a record of past wines enjoyed through the app, and add notes to their record.

I found the Food2Wine and Wine2Food pairings quite intuitive! Wine lovers are always interested in knowing the best pairings to make with their coveted bottles of wine, and this service will prove to inspire new food horizons at home. Taking the time to catalog your entire wine collection will be beneficial, as QelviQ uses Google Cloud for its database management and the archive of customer wine collections. It records the full inventory of a wine collection, allowing users to manage how much of each wine they have on hand.

QelviQ Personal Sommelier is available for $495 directly at qelviq.com or from Saks Fifth Avenue. Coming this fall, the Q Speed Cooler will be available for $199 - the portable cooler, cooling at the speed of a freezer without any ice or water.