Tipsy — high tech, low intervention, happy wines
High Tech
Why the technology
Natural wine is a simple promise (grapes, yeast, time, nothing else), yet a fragile one: left uncontrolled, it fails often — one study found roughly 70%1 of self-defined natural wines carried aromatic defects. Our approach to the problem is knowing what happens inside the tank while it happens, and steering with temperature and timing instead of chemistry. The technology isn’t there to industrialise the wine; it’s what lets us leave it alone with confidence.
We didn't have to invent most of the technology. The beer brewing scene solved live fermentation monitoring years ago. We moved it from brewhouse to cellar, recalibrated it for grape must and let it watch our tanks 24/7.
And since we borrowed most of it, we happily pass it on: if you’re a small winery curious about measuring your own tanks, we’ll help you set it up — write us.
What we measure
| Signal | Preferred range | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | White / Rosé 12–18°C Red 20–28°C Pét-Nat base 12–16°C |
Controls yeast activity, flavour development and fermentation speed. |
| Humidity | 50–80% | Keeps unwanted microbial growth out of the cellar. |
| pH | White 3.0–3.4 Red 3.3–3.6 Pét-Nat 2.9–3.2 |
Drives microbial stability, taste and natural SO₂ effectiveness. |
| ORP | +200 to +400 mV oxidative −50 to −200 mV reductive |
Reads oxidation risk for whites, aging potential for reds. |
| CO₂ | Active ferment: 3–10% air CO₂ | Tracks fermentation progress in real time. |
| Dissolved O₂ | Ferment <1 ppm Aging 0.2–0.8 ppm |
Yeast health early, oxidation risk later. |
| Pressure | Pét-Nat 2.5–3 bar | Sets carbonation in the bottle. |
| Light | Low to none | Only in the lab, where clear vessels let us watch the ferment. |
Low Intervention
Controlling the reaction without chemicals
Fermentation is a quiet battle — beneficial yeasts and bacteria turning juice into something alive, while spoilage microbes wait for a mistake. We don’t win it with chemistry. We win it with conditions: temperature, oxygen, timing.
Every creature lives inside its own slice of the world. A bat hunts by echoes we can’t hear; a bee reads ultraviolet patterns on petals we can’t see. The biologist Jakob von Uexküll called this bubble of the perceivable the Umwelt2. Ours has no sense for what goes on inside a sealed, fermenting tank — so we build one. Sensors extend our Umwelt, turning the invisible into numbers, and let us intervene with knowledge rather than intuition.
Living wines:
no sulfur added ★ unfiltered ★ alive
Happy Wines
Three experiments you can drink
Made with attention, not additives.
Tap a bottle for the story and the
full tech sheet.