If you love perusing a heavy leather cover wine list in a restaurant, this is not for you! Exit the wine list painfully typed by the sommelier or restaurant owner and rarely updated! I usually get slightly annoyed when I order a bottle of wine of the 2003 vintage and hear the waiter tell me: “I hope you don’t mind having the 2004 because the 2003 is sold out.” Yes, I do mind because I enjoy an updated wine list with the right vintage, the right wine and… the right answer.

My wish will be granted soon (hopefully) when all restaurants will have adopted the SmartCellar, the newest product in the SmartTouch series of Incentient, a company based in Jericho, NY. SmartCellar is a a 9-by-5-inch wireless high-definition color touch-screen device similar to a tablet computer smartly designed to look good on a restaurant table. The SmartCellar is connected to the database of the restaurant and can be updated everyday if necessary by the sommelier or the waiter. No more disappointment!

If you live in New York, you’ll be able to experiment this new device at SD26, the restaurant of Peter May. I can’t wait to see it coming to more restaurants in the US and in Europe!

PS. By the way a funny little detail: Incentient didn’t update its web site and SmartCellar is not represented in the “Applications” section. So much for helping restaurant keeping their wine list updated if they don’t apply this very simple principle to their own company. Cheers!