Traverse City Good to the last drop Company launches system to serve wine by the glass, maximize profit

By Dan Nielsen Traverse City Record-Eagle TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - No one wants to waste a drop of good wine. Ed O'Keefe Jr., has toiled the last five and a half years to help prevent unnecessary loss of alcohol. His newest venture, ePour Technologies Inc., this month launched his brainchild -the ePour system. The countertop device dispenses wine by the glass from a refrigerated bag that preserves the product for up to six months. The system is designed to help restaurants and other businesses serve top quality wine and maximize profit, according to the Traverse City Record-Eagle. O'Keefe is familiar with the sense of loss that stems from spilled wine. He is founder and CEO of Chateau Grand Traverse on Old Mission Peninsula. The winery's product is served in restaurants and other venues like all other wines - by the glass, usually poured by hand from bottles. Consistent pours are the dream of managers in tasting rooms, restaurants and anywhere wine is sold by the glass. Servers who pour too little into each wine glass could disappoint customers. Servers who pour too much can leak profits from the operations. Wine that ends up on the floor or unused in the bottom of the bottle does no one any good. "It's 85 percent cheaper to drink wine this way," said O'Keefe said the ePour system. He initially started thinking about the machine as a way to make the tasting room at Chateau Grand Traverse more efficient. Eliminating the cost of bottles, corks and waste associated with small glass packages drove the concept toward larger containers. He dove into the project and began envisioning wider use for the device. "It has the potential to be a $50 million company," O'Keefe said. The wine industry has been moving toward placing high-value, high-quality wines in boxes or plastic pouches to maximize profitability in establishments that serve wine by the glass, he said. O'Keefe designed the machine to accept a pair of bags, each of which contains a case of wine. The bags are made of a material that keeps air away from the wine. The tubing and check valves in the dispensing system are constructed to ensure no oxygen can reach the stored wine. Liquid is dispensed with a computer-controlled vacuum pump that sucks the liquid out of the bag. Other systems in the past have used pressure to force the liquid out of the container - those systems introduce air into the container that can degrade the quality of the wine. The machine that launched this month includes two trays, so it can dispense two different wines. "If you have five machines, you have 10 cases," O'Keefe said. The company will in 2016 introduce a larger machine that will hold four bags of wine. The machines can be set up to allow dispensing quantities for glass, carafe or bottle. O'Keefe says the machines would allow institutions to allow self-serve dispensing. Wines currently available in the 9-liter bags for the machine include Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi 2013 Cabernet and Chardonnay, Robert Mondavi Private Selection 2013 Cabernet and Chardonnay, Mark West Pinot Noir 2012 and Estancia Pino Grigio 2013. The machines are being test marketed in Maryland and Colorado. O'Keefe envisions placing the ePour machines in sports stadiums, casinos, airport lounges, cruise ships, banquet facilities and in private homes. The company guarantees freshness of the packaged wines for six months after they are opened, O'Keefe said. But he said they should actually be good for a year because of the material used to make the flexible bags and the associated tubing. The built-in computer meters dispense liquid exactly and will track which server pours which wines. The restaurant owner can set the computer to dispense the same amount of wine each time the dispense button is pushed. "You can't over-pour," he said. O'Keefe hatched the idea when he set up a restaurant in Traverse City years ago and wanted to serve Chateau Grand Traverse wines. His license limited how he could serve wine. He ended up setting up a barrel with a valve on the front and a bag of wine concealed behind. It allowed servers to dispense wine by the glass. His mind flew forward from there to the ePour. The base price for the unit is $4,000. They also are being offered for rent through Point of Sale Credit Corp., of Syracuse, New York, for as little as $100 per month for a long-term rental. O'Keefe is investigating possible sales of similar devices for other alcoholic beverages like whiskey. They could provide an additional market for the device. The ePour company's administrative headquarters is in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. Published: Wed, Oct 28, 2015