A Chilling Revelation in wine

A new Spokane Valley company is on a mission to improve the way people enjoy their wine.

Manifest Labels LLC, which does business as Manifest, has created the Chill-O-Meter, a temperature-activated seal that indicates when a bottle of wine has reached its optimal temperature.

Using leuco dye—a type of dye that can change colors when there is a change in temperature—the patent-pending Chill-O-Meter seal adheres to a wine bottle and reveals whether the wine is too warm, too cold, or just right.

The technology is similar to that of the thermo-sensitive labels used on Coors Light beer cans and bottles that cause the mountains in the beer’s label to turn blue when cold, although Manifest’s seals are reversible, meaning the revealing process can go back and forth as the wine cools or warms.

“We did a bunch of focus groups with winemakers, and one thing they told us is it’s equally as important that a wine is not served too warm because it’ll be hot and acidic—the profile and all the characteristics won’t come out,” says Alison Eldred, Manifest’s co-founder, president, and CEO. “If it’s too cold, it’ll be flat and lifeless.”

The seal reads “chill” when wine needs to be made colder, “chilled” when it’s at the optimal temperature, or “too chill” when it is too cold. Manifest offers separate labels for red wine, white wine and, white wine and rosé, and sparkling wine, all of which are intended by winemakers to be enjoyed at different temperatures.

For each of the three wine types that Manifest makes seals for, there is a range of about three or four degrees that wine is supposed to be served at, says Manifest’s chief marketing officer Dayne Kuhlmann.

“Some people are like, ‘Why is the wine, when I go into the winery, so much better?’ They take the wine home, and they can’t match the experience,” Kuhlmann says. “So much of it is because they’re in that temperature range, where it’s supposed to be.”

Eldred opened Manifest early this year with co-founder and vice president Timo Lunceford. Lunceford is also the general manager and vice president at Liberty Lake-based manufacturer Swiss Productions Inc., a machine shop that specializes in making medical equipment and parts.

Eldred and Lunceford met at a Bible study group that Eldred was leading. Manifest’s name and its logo, which symbolizes turning water into wine, were inspired by a Bible passage, Lunceford says.

“I had the idea for four or five years, and it literally just kept coming up in my mind over and over, and then I met Timo and we perfected the idea,” Eldred says.

Lunceford, who was born and raised in Napa, California, which is in the heart of the Napa Valley wine region, says he developed a passion for wine about 15 years ago and now has his own cellar with 350 bottles of wine.

“I’m very passionate about it,” Lunceford says. “It’s all about the temperature, the flavors, the smells, the earth tones, everything.”

Lunceford says he wants Manifest to create a high-quality experience for consumers.

“When a winemaker makes wine, he doesn’t taste it out of a bottle, he tastes it out of a barrel and at that moment, he knows it’s the right flavor,” he says. “We want to recreate that and give the enthusiasts and the consumers the same experience that he had.”

Despite being based in Spokane Valley, Manifest’s seals are manufactured in Napa by an outside contractor, Lunceford says. He, Eldred, and Kuhlmann are the company’s only employees for now, although it hires outside contractors for some work, Eldred says.

Manifest is moving into its beta-testing phase, she says, and has been conducting focus groups and working with sommeliers and winemakers as it makes the Chill-O-Meter technology more available to the public.

“We’re signing some accounts and trying to get our product out into more of a production environment now, where we can really test it and find out a true proof of concept,” Eldred says. “We’re starting out with winemakers because we feel like they’re the most passionate about their wine tasting as they intended.”

Although it has a deal in place with a Napa tasting room and has made sales in Texas, Eldred says Manifest is also interested in working with local winemakers.

Manifest is working with Spokane-based Townshend Cellar to add the Chill-O-Meter to some of the winery’s bottles as part of its beta-testing phase. Manifest and Townshend set up a display with bottles equipped with the seal last week at a Yoke’s Fresh Market along North Foothills Drive, in north Spokane. Townshend has paid Manifest for each of the seals used on the winery’s bottles, and Manifest has given Townshend free promotional products as part of its beta-tester program, Eldred says.

Manifest is also working with Barrister Winery, of Spokane, and with a sommelier at Beverly’s, a restaurant at the Coeur d’Alene Resort.

“Some of the wineries really want to use our tool more in their tasting rooms,” Eldred says. “Beverly’s has talked about using it for their wine club, and then we have Townshend that really wants to use it in retail.”

Right now, Manifest is offering the Chill-O-Meter technology in the form of seals to winemakers, but Kuhlmann says the next step is to license the technology so companies can implement the Chill-O-Meter directly into their own wine labels.

“Everything is happening fast, it’s picking up steam,” Kuhlmann says. “That’s how we know we’re heading in the right direction.”

Manifest also brings an educational aspect to the wine industry, Kuhlmann says, especially for those who are newer to drinking wine.

“Most people don’t realize red wine should be chilled below room temperature,” Kuhlmann says.

The average room temperature, Eldred says, has grown to 70-72 degrees, but wine should never be served above 68 degrees, she says.

“There really is a need in the market,” Eldred says.

Manifest will attend a variety of wine industry events in Washington, Oregon, and California to spread the word about its Chill-O-Meter technology and get it in the hands of winemakers and influencers, Eldred says.

“We’ll be attending a lot of trade shows, getting the word out about our product, building some more excitement, doing demos, also working with some of our clients right now in this beta-test phase to really experiment with it in a production environment,” Eldred says.