Vin Tech: Smart Storage Options for Your Wine

Wine, like nearly every culinary art, is no stranger to smart technology.

With precise temperature requirements, collector preferences and security concerns, wine—and more specifically, wine storage—has been fruitful ground for connected devices.

Here are some of our top picks for smartly storing your vino.

Plum

_Plum

Plum is perfect for the collector who is big on wine but short on space. Once a bottle is inserted into this countertop contraption, it automatically identifies the varietal, region, winery and wine, and prepares the drink exactly as the creator intended—precisely puncturing the cork (or alternate top) and bringing it to the optimal temperature identified by the winemaker. Essentially, Plum provides a speedy, sommelier-curated wine cave for those bottles you’ve been keeping in your kitchen cabinet. And Plum’s dual chambers, which can hold bottles at their ideal temperature for up to 90 days, means you can provide your guests (or yourself) with a little vino variety.

Plum is available for approx. $3260.

Café Wine Center

_Cafe

For the moderate collector with a mind for display, Café offers a 46-bottle wine fridge with a LED light wall that spans the entire back panel, providing a stylish lighting solution for selecting and showing your collection. Owners can control this lighting feature on the Wi-Fi-enabled Wine Center via SmartHQ app, dimming and illuminating their wine storage with the swipe of a finger. In addition to being chic, the Wine Center covers the practical, with a dual zone chiller—store your reds and whites at different temperatures—which, again, can be entirely controlled by the accompanying app.

The Café Wine Center is available for approx. $3260.

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator

_LG

You can’t talk about high-tech fridges without mentioning LG, and the Wine Cellar Refrigerator doesn’t disappoint. This 65-bottle wine storage solution is Wi-Fi-equipped, meaning users can exercise control over its three temperature zones with the accompanying ThinQ app—but they don’t even need to trouble themselves. Built with LG’s Optimal Preservation Technology, the Wine Cellar Refrigerator automatically works to reduce temperature fluctuations, light exposure and vibrations, while also locking in humidity. And the convenient features don’t stop there. The Wine Cellar Refrigerator includes a smart sensor at the bottom that lets users open the door with a wave of their foot—or with the sound of their voice, as the clever cooler also works with Alexa and Google Assistant. But why open the fridge at all if you don’t need to? The Wine Cellar Refrigerator also includes LG’s InstaView tech, which allows users to simply knock twice on the front glass of the fridge, instantly turning it from opaque to transparent.

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator is available for approx. $9130.

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage

_Sub-Zero

A leading name in lowering temperatures, Sub-Zero offers oenophiles style, security and smart features with its Designer Wine Storage series. Holding 59, 86, or 102 bottles, depending on model size, the Wi-Fi-equipped Designer Series allows users to remotely control temperatures across two to four temperature zones, while dual evaporators maintain consistent humidity throughout. And because collections can often be priceless (sentimentally, if not financially), the Designer Series easily integrates with your home security system, ensuring that your beloved Beaujolais remain yours.

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage refrigerators are available for approx. $8195 to $12,060, depending on size.

The Apple growth and profit machine is wavering, and the boost from price increases might not be enough to keep it going at historic rates. That dials up the pressure on Apple’s new chief executive, John Ternus.

The company saved the bad news for its earnings call, an hour after it posted its results for the September quarter, projecting that for the current quarter its high-margin services business will continue to slow and that its widely watched gross profit margin will continue to fall.

Apple AAPL -1.83%decrease; down pointing triangle shares had been flat in post-close trading but declined as much as 4% after the company made the projections, which fell short of Wall Street estimates.

The impact of high memory costs are weighing even more heavily on the company, Ternus and Apple Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said on the company’s earnings call. Apple has stockpiled cheaper components purchased earlier, but those inventories are dwindling.

When Ternus took over as Apple’s third chief executive of the past 29 years on Sept. 1, he inherited sky-high expectations. The men he followed were among the most successful company leaders in American business history. Steve Jobs revolutionized consumer devices multiple times. Tim Cook expanded Jobs’s creation to spectacular heights.

The expectations are reflected in Apple’s huge valuation. Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang noted that Apple stock trades at 36 times next year’s expected earnings, a premium to the overall market, even though its earnings are only expected to grow 1%, which is slower than its tech peers.

“We see insufficient upside to justify the premium,” Yang wrote in an investor note, adding that Apple needs to boost iPhone sales growth and turn around its slowing services business to make him more bullish.

Investors have bid up Apple shares because it has been a port in the AI storm—a reliable and capital-efficient business that stands apart from rivals which are spending hundreds of billions of dollars racing to the AI frontier.

While others invest in data centers, Apple has been pouring its own cash into buybacks and dividends. But that safety may be challenged if Ternus can’t speed up Apple’s innovation engine.

Apple’s lagging performance in AI was evident when its new “Siri AI” chatbot arrived this past quarter. Its long-maligned assistant was already stale the day it arrived, surpassed by agents such as Instinct and Muse that can complete multistep tasks for consumers, while Siri still sets kitchen timers.

Apple needs to give people reasons to buy its devices as they get more expensive. The company raised prices across the board last quarter to help offset higher costs. Without compelling new features, a big question is whether consumers will slow the frequency of iPhone upgrades.

The new iPhone Duo appears to be a bright spot. Consumers are scooping up the $1,999 foldable smartphone despite mixed reviews—so many that Apple can’t keep up with demand. Shipping dates jumped out to January soon after the device went on sale, a disappointment for the normally reliable Apple supply chain.

Apple said its revenue grew 12% in the September quarter, slightly ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. Its widely tracked gross profit margin, at 47.9%, also came in just ahead of analyst estimates.

Apple will need to find new growth avenues because a reliable engine during the Cook era—the services business—is slowing. Courts and regulators worldwide have limited Apple’s ability to charge developers big fees to distribute apps through its App Store, the biggest component of the company’s services segment.

One of its most lucrative App Store fee generators has been the ChatGPT app from OpenAI. Around the time Apple accused OpenAI of trade-secret theft this past summer, OpenAI began redirecting potential subscribers to pay via its website instead of the App Store, skirting Apple’s tollbooth.

Apple’s valuation has bumped up against a ceiling in recent weeks. Six times it traded above a $5 trillion market capitalization intraday before finally closing above the threshold, which it has already fallen back below.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.

Vin Tech: Smart Storage Options for Your Wine

For those who love automation as much as they love Cabernet, these devices are sure to satisfy.

Plum

Café Wine Center

LG Wine Cellar Refrigerator

Sub-Zero Designer Wine Storage

Apple’s growth engine is showing signs of slowing, as rising costs, weaker services growth and AI competition challenge its profitability. With John Ternus taking the helm, the pressure is on to reignite innovation and sustain investor confidence.