What's the perfect pour when it comes to a glass of wine? For Nationals Park, it's an exact one.
When you order wine at Nationals Park, almost every cup is now poured from a tap with a precisely measured automatic cut-off. It might not seem like a big deal, but the technology behind that pour saves the stadium thousands of dollars lost in the traditional hand-poured from bottle system. It's a solution that Sterling, Va.-based Sestra Systems has been finding a relatively easy sell since founder Lev Volftsun expanded his Five Grapes wine distribution company.
"The core equipment is straightforward but it solves the four main sources of loss for wine; spoilage, breakage, theft and over pouring," explained Stephen Levin, Sestra's data analytics lead. "With bottles it's hard to see visually what you're pouring and get whatever regulation number of glasses per bottle you should. And going from bottles to kegs saves between 5 and 40 percent on loss from theft."
The kegs are essentially the same as the ones used to transport wine wholesale to bottlers, and are great for most wines Levin said, especially when sold in large quantities like at baseball games and other events. And they offer a lot of savings to the venue since it skips the cost for bottles or labels or corks and is lighter to ship.
"We see it as where the screw top [wine bottles] were a while back," Levin said. "Kegs like ours are only going to be more popular."
At the tap above the keg, there are sensors to precisely measure the amount poured into a cup, meaning there's never an under or over-full cup.
"We're really the only ones out there doing volume measurement," Levin said. "And we're measuring through true volume. It's not variable on temperature or pressure so we know we're perfectly accurate. And we can collect better data on what's being sold so the clients know what's popular."
Sestra doesn't charge for the equipment. Instead, it charges per pour, as measured by the same system that doles out the wine. It attracts clients since they don't have to pay anything up front, and it means that Sestra can continue to upgrade the equipment, which it has already done repeatedly, Levin said.
"We're incentivized to to do everything we can to get our customers installed as soon as possible," Levin said. "For example, we had a customer make installation changes last minute and offer to delay the install date, but we are doing everything we can to hit the original date to take advantage of the pour volume that we would miss out on if we were to delay."
Along with the 30 stations at the stadium, there are several theaters, bars and hotel venues using Sestra, with more to come, Levin said. The company has raised $9.2 million in two rounds of funding so far. And wine isn't the only area that Sestra is looking toward. Beer, liquor and soft drinks are on the agenda, and the company is already testing its equipment on dispensing cold brew and cold brew nitro iced coffee from local coffee roaster Commonwealth Joe.
"I don't drink so I'm excited we're testing out the coffee now," Levin said. "Beer is where the big money is though."
