The New + the Next

So Long, Beer Goggles. Hello, VR Wine Goggles

From Australia to Argentina and New Zealand to Napa Valley, winemakers are turning to augmented and virtual reality to attract a new generation of customers.

In early 2018, Ontario wine researcher Debbie Inglis sat down to take a much-needed sip of merlot to celebrate the $960,000 grant she’d been awarded to build the augmented and virtual reality consumer research lab at Brock University. With a VR headset on, she raised the glass to her lips. Crack. She tried again. Nope. “The glass would hit the bridge of the goggles,” she says. That just wouldn’t do; to test drinking behavior in different VR scenarios, the goggles needed to be compatible with a regular flute.

This seemingly niche request is increasingly an industrywide need, as VR and AR drinking experiences surge with the traditionally slow-to-adapt wine world opening its arms to the latest tech. For winemakers, these are exciting tools to broaden their audiences and brands worldwide. And consumers can now savor a fine drink while also experiencing a slice of nature, history or even an apocalyptic future.

Melbourne-based Treasury Wine Estates launched the 19 Crimes wine brand in 2017; its whole shtick is an AR app that animates the criminals printed on the labels. The app was so popular that it crashed with overuse. It followed that up with the zombie-themed AR Walking Dead wines. And in August 2018, it came out with emBrazen wines. Its AR labels celebrate accomplished women such as Nellie Bly and Josephine Baker.

The New + the Next

Where You Can Taste Wine as Old as Grandma

This Australian cellar lets you sample booze from the year you were born — but only up to age 116.

My request to taste the 110-year-old wine stuns the manager, Nigel Thiele — a vintage of this age is the oldest they’ve been asked to open. The small barrel has a few cracks through where wine has seeped through. Thiele draws out a small quantity of the port, which is deep red and viscous. As expected from a century-old fortified wine, its sweetness has concentrated and tastes like a rich Christmas fruitcake with hints of butterscotch. I take small sips and toast my grandmother across the Indian Ocean.

This wine was bottled in 1908, the year my grandmother was born. And this Australian cellar allows visitors the unique opportunity to sample vintages from special years in their lives. What can be more satisfying than cracking open a bottle of wine that was “born” in the same year as you? It’s one of the few places where the older you are, the better your experience.