NEC System Technologies, a technology-oriented IT company provides customers with infrastructure and solutions that best fit their business requirements and by consolidating accumulated knowledge create valuable solutions for the new generation and deliver them to customers.

The Mie University that looks for the creation of a unique educational environment and a research program based on the local region toward the world together with NEC System Technologies has developed a "Personal Robot with a Sense of Taste".

The Japanese researchers have manage to create a "robot-sommelier" that is capable of examining the taste of food and giving the name of the food as well as its ingredients. But the robot can provide more information beside the ingredients and can give advice on the food and on health issues based on the information gathered. The achievement was made possible by combining NEC System Technologies' robot technology and pattern recognition technology with the analytical techniques of the infrared spectroscopic technology of the BIFE Laboratory. The director of the NEC System Technology Research Laboratory in Japan explained that: "There are all kinds of robots out there doing many different things. But we decided to focus on wine because that seemed like a real challenge."

The first robot was called "Health and Food Advice Robot," but now the experts developed it into a so-called robot-sommelier, or "wine-bot" that can "taste" and identify types of wine. The shape of the robot is very pleasant is it is 2ft-tall (0.6m). It uses sensors with infrared light to identify different tastes. Infrared light is fired through the sample, and the robot can differentiate between different types of food and drink by determining the different wavelengths of light that are absorbed. By using its built-in voice function, the robot can convey exactly what it has found out.

The press as well as the world of wine has reacted in different ways to the launch of the robot.

The Associated Press it is useful as it could become personalised to recommend wines to suit its owner's palate. The robot is capable of distinguishing several different types or blends of grapes and can be personalised to alert a customer to the wines they prefer, and to recommend to new varieties that they might like to try.

For the moment the tasting power of the robot is limited but the researchers expect that in the future the robot could be used by the wine industry to help in quality control. Nowadays when the global wine market boasts thousands of wines it is very difficult for a robot to distinguish between all of them.

Bibendum Wine Limited occupies a very special position in the UK wine trade and overseas as it made two very significant joint ventures, one with Lion Nathan Wine Group for their regional Australian wine portfolio, and the other with Boisset of Burgundy for their range of fine French wines. As a reaction to the launching of the robot-sommelier, Dan Coward, from Bibendum Wine Limited, said: "I love new ideas in wine, but this one seems like technology for the sake of it. The human wine taster will always have the upper hand in terms of flavour, smell and texture, and can make qualitative judgments based on the combination of these factors. We are trying to get more people to taste wine as often as possible, so it would be a real shame if they decided a robot should do that for them."

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Visit Vintage Roots at http://www.vintageroots.co.uk, for organic wines

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I, with my husband enrolled to a wine of the month club, thanks to the couple that chose to stay with us on a weekend who extended the invitation to join the club. I think it as a wonderful gift of courtesy. Ever since joining the club, we receive two bottles of wine every month. My husband doesn't care about wine and he asks me what to do with that much wine. I found a solution to the problem. I decided to use my membership at a club of different kind, a book club to make the most of the sample wine bottle I would receive from the wine club.

I met the members of the book club at a meeting and told them about the wine I get from the 'wine of the month' club. Till then it is not a problem finishing off the wine. We picked a book on wine making, wine testing, wine sampling and stories of people related to wine making and serving industry. We are book club members, you see. The next meeting of the book club was planned at my home. By the time the meeting materialized, I had some unique bottles of wine. We discussed the book (really!) while sampling the wine. It was a nice thing to see wine of the month club was mentioned in the book. Now tell me what should I call the meeting - wine of the month meeting or book club meeting?

I agree it was the loudest book club meeting we ever had. Different sampling wine glasses were emptied at regular intervals. It was great fun for everyone. Was it wine of the month club that added fun and value to our book club meeting or is it the other way round? It doesn't matter till we have something for our intellect and for our tongue as well.

The membership fee to the wine of the month club is quite reasonable and most of the book club members joined the club as a group. It is nice that the hostess always something unique for the guests, even in the form of wines. Some of the wines are great tasting while I don't really like all of them. It doesn't matter - there will always be takers for the tastes that I personally dislike. It is only natural for us to note which wines perform well on our tongues and which one doesn't. We will be purchasing the ones that raised some prolific cheers.

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