Wine Grenade CEO and Co-Founder Hamish Elmslie isn’t afraid to go against the grain when it comes to wine production.

Particularly when an astounding 7.7 billion litres of heavy red wine, pinot noir, and chardonnay is produced around the world every single year.

“Maturing wine in an oak barrel is notoriously expensive, in fact it adds around $1.50 to the cost of every bottle of wine that’s produced in that way.

“That’s why we came up with the Wine Grenade, a smart simple affordable and highly effective micro-oxygenation system that we’ve designed from the ground up,” Hamish said.

The device is also a living breathing example of IoT or internet connected.

“We incorporate a number of sensors into each device, generating thousands of data points a day, and that information can alert our customers when they need to take an action like change the oxygen over.

“By taking that data and combining it with process data that will give winemakers a previously unimaginable level of insight into the development of their wine. They’ll be able to compare what they’re doing with winemakers around the world producing the same varietal,” Hamish added.

Vodafone’s status as New Zealand’s leading network was an enormous driver when the Wine Grenade team decided to apply to Vodafone xone, a start-up accelerator programme.

A successful entry to Vodafone xone now just the beginning.

“We’re over the moon. Being part of xone is going to allow us to unlock some of the potential of having an internet-connected device – to be able to access that expertise and knowledge is absolutely thrilling,” Hamish said.