Let me tell you the story of the literal only time I bought a bottle of wine that was over 10 dollars: I drank a glass of it; I thoroughly enjoyed it; then I got distracted by my bonkers human life, promptly forgot it existed, and was forced to throw it a tiny funeral as I poured the rest of it down the drain. As someone who enjoys a glass or two of wine a week, I've avoided buying anything expensive ever since, for fear that wine would meet the same grisly fate — but that's before I was introduced to Kuvée, a Wi-Fi connected smart wine dispenser and subscription service that accepts me for the ridiculously forgetful (and, to be frank, lazy) wine-o that I am.
Kuvée Smart Wine Dispenser, $150, Kuvee.com
Kuvée's main draw for wine drinkers of my ilk is that it prevents you from ever wasting any of your precious wine. The whole point of the system is that the bottles in the dispenser aren't exposed to oxygen when you insert them and pull them out, so you can enjoy the same bottle of wine at your leisure for (le gasp!) a full 30 days. Plus, getting your wine through Kuvée is so ridiculously easy that you never even have to leave your front door — the subscription service sends wine to you in plastic, Kuvée-adapted wine bottles, pretty much eliminating the need to ever find your pants again. And unlike that stuff you bought at the drugstore as guilty penance for That Expensive Wine You Wasted That One Time, Kuvée's wine is classy AF. They've struck partnerships with dozens of major and acclaimed wine labels, so now you can open your wine (and forget about it for a hot second), and drink it, too — all while getting your full money's worth, to the last drop.
Kuvée also goes the extra mile to educate all the amateur sommeliers of the world with its Wi-Fi connected screen. Based on the wine that you load into the dispenser, the screen can offer information about the wine and its origins, suggest pairings, and let you rate the wine. For the impressively savvy (read: lazy) among us, you can even order another bottle of something you like straight off Kuvée's screen. (Sometimes the laptop is across the entire room, guys. The ENTIRE ROOM!)
What makes Kuvée truly unique, though, is just how accessible and personal it makes wine. As someone who has made more than a few cursory, slightly embarrassed Google searches that somehow turn into massive Google dives trying to understand wine culture, I am ridiculously relieved to have all the information I need at the touch of a button. The background Kuvée provides about each wine doesn't require a massive wine knowledge base to understand, and is an especially cool experience because of Kuvée's close ties to all of the wines that it partners with. I knew approximately two things about wine before I started with Kuvée (one of them was just, "Grapes??"), but I'm two bottles in and already making major strides in terms of wine knowledge. Plus, I feel a lot more comfortable buying wine that I used to consider out of my budget, and I can really take note of the quality difference between these wines and the kind that I was drinking before.
If you want to join me on the cool kid wine train, it's fairly simple: when you first purchase Kuvée (which retails for $150), you begin with a "starter bundle," which includes the Kuvée dispenser along with four wines tailored to your tastes, whether you lean more toward red, white, or both (aka, wine-vergent). From there, you can select monthly or bimonthly subscriptions of four, eight, or 12 wines, or decide to forego the subscription and buy the bottles as you go. Unlike most people you've dated, the longer you use Kuvée, the more in tune it will become with your taste preferences — so basically you'll love each wine shipment that comes along more than the one before. If you're a good person, you'll share. If you're a smart person, you won't.
Regardless of where your moral compass stands re: delicious wine, learn more about Kuvée and their subscription options at their website here.
Check out Bustle's Most Wanted, a list of our editors' 25 favorite things for spring 2017.
