Aureole + HP

Chef Charlie Palmer’s Aureole Restaurant in Las Vegas is as spectacular as the Mandalay Bay Resort in which it resides. The restaurant is home to not only some of the world’s most fabulous cuisine but an equally breathtaking 60,000 bottle wine collection, 10,000 bottles of which are housed in a 42-foot, climate-controlled wine tower. But it took a little help from HP to get Aureole’s wine from the tower to its customers.

Wine Director Andrew Bradbury quickly discovered that picking out a bottle from a 125-page wine list is no small task. “Guests would have to thumb through 20 pages of California Cabernet alone,” says Bradbury. “Not only was the wine list a major hassle and expensive to update, but it was also intimidating to customers. There had to be a way to make ordering wine more fun.”

Bradbury had been considering an electronic wine list for years, but wasn’t sold on the technology until he got a look at HP’s wireless tablet PC, the TC 1000. Aureole partnered with HP, along with a software design firm, to create the world’s first interactive wine list. Now customers are handed Tablet PCs at their tables, allowing them to search for wine by price, region, winery, year and varietal. They can find out what wine pairs best with the evening’s menu, the difference between a Chilean and an Australian Shiraz, and even watch streaming video of their bottle being retrieved by “wine angels,” who pick out bottles by being mechanically hoisted up and down the tower on cables.

Today, the connection between technology and the food service industry is evolving. More and more restaurants like Aureole are relying on HP handheld computing technology to improve every aspect of their business. For Aureole customers, choosing a wine has become less work and more fun – a strategy with immediately visible benefits. Last year alone, wine sales at Aureole increased by more than $750,000 – proving, once again, that HP technology can satisfy any industry hungry for innovation.