Would Amazon Drones give a lift to wine?

amazon_droneJeff Bezos had some crazy talk for Charlie Rose at the end of a 60 Minutes segment: Amazon is working to deliver some items in 30 minutes or less via unmanned, aerial drones.

It’s not April Fool’s Day; Amazon tweeted a link to a picture of the “octocopter” delivery vehicle and published this futuristic video on YouTube. Bezos did concede to Charlie Rose that the plan, possibly 4-5 years off, “requires more safety testing and FAA approvals.”

If Amazon drones were approved, this delivery method would have enormous implications. But since we’re a wine blog, we’ll focus on the wine angle here: getting wine in 30 minutes would give a lift to your Friday night. And since the Octocopter delivers to GPS coordinates, it could conceivably track your phone and deliver your whole picnic right to where you are. Hopefully, there will also be a robotic sommelier to pop and pour.

Or is it so futuristic, unworkably weather- and regulation-dependent, that the main triumph is just to give a lot of buzz (without rotors) during the busiest shopping time of the year?

9 Responses to “Would Amazon Drones give a lift to wine?”


  1. Drizly (http://www.drizly.com) is entering the New York market with a promise to deliver in 30 minutes the old-fashioned way


  2. The issue with delivering wine by Amazon Prime Air is weight, “The drones will be capable of delivering items up to 5 pounds in weight, which Bezos said account for 86 percent of the items that Amazon delivers.” With the avg. weight of a wine bottle being 2 lbs, you’d only be able to ship 2 bottles max.


  3. Barney Lehrer: is that you?

    Did I once rent a place in Beaucaire from you?

    is-wine…remember?


  4. Getting around the adult signature requirement will be problematic


  5. All I need now is become a sharp shooter. Pluck these babies out of the sky and voila you have free wine and cheese


  6. About Amazon, something very interesting:

    http://www.k-ber.net/amazon-et-le-vin/


  7. One day, maybe, Amazon could bring you frenchwine directly from french vineyard? http://ils.karpek.com/latest-from-france/beaujolais-nouveau-vendanges-tardives/


  8. @ Ed – details, details!

    To be honest, I’d give driverless delivery vans the odds on bringing an Amazon package to your house. But that would also prove problematic for signature/age verification! Nothing that a retina scan wouldn’t take care of…


  9. We delivered a bottle of Cabernet by drone in this Amazon spoof video- http://youtu.be/m4BVP-irrVo


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