Samsung woos wine lovers with new Bespoke refrigerators, IoT features

Samsung Electronics said Thursday a wine cooler will be part of its new home appliance package under its Bespoke brand to target wine lovers in South Korea, coupled with its Internet of Things features for wine pairing recommendation.

Its new premium built-in side-by-side refrigerator, under its brand-new Bespoke Infinite lineup, has a dual-zone vertical wine cooler that can hold up to 101 bottles of wine.

The temperature for each zone can be set at between 4-18 degrees Celsius, enabling users to store both red and white wine bottles. The two different zones are separated vertically by a cool pantry for wine snacks such as ham, nuts, cheese and fruits, and users can have five options for the temperature setting there.

The wine cooler will be one of the four vertical compartments of the side-by-side refrigerator, alongside those dedicated to fridge and freezer, as well as kimchi storage for fermentation, Samsung said. The retail price of Samsung’s fridge with wine cooler starts at 5 million won ($4,200).

Combined with Samsung‘s up-to-date SmartThings software, the new product will offer wine fans a richer wine experience with stronger multidevice connectivity powered by artificial intelligence.

The voice control-enabled software, which connects Samsung’s gadget devices with Bespoke home appliances via Wi-Fi, recommends options for wine and its food pairing. It also provides wine inventory management feature with the app‘s camera functionality, simply by taking photos of the wine label.

The side-by-side refrigerator was part of the Bespoke Infinite lineup, unveiled Thursday during a virtual press conference.

The Bespoke Infinite lineup also boasts a large-capacity four-door French door refrigerator, a smart kitchen hood, a dual-cook oven, a 7.4-kilowatt four-element induction cooktop and a 12-person capacity dishwasher, all of which are built-in appliances.

These are also part of the new 24 Bespoke products -- including a wind-free air conditioner, a lightweight cleaner, a 24-kilogram washing machine and a 20-kilogram dryer -- that are poised for a launch through the end of 2022.

The launch came in the fourth year of Bespoke collection, which offers users a personalized package of home appliances for a kitchen, a living room and a laundry room.

Bespoke lineups took up over 80 percent of Samsung’s home appliance sales in Korea in 2021, Lee Jae-seung, president and head of digital appliances business at Samsung Electronics, said in a press conference.

Lee added its Bespoke lineups will have greater presence in overseas market, as they are poised to sell in 50 countries in North America, Europe and central Asia by the end of the year.

(consnow@heraldcorp.com)