In the world of beverages, major brands are coming to the same realization Tobler did over a century ago. There has been a growing trend away from glass and towards aluminium. One of the most notable shifts occurred in 2012, when Perrier began marketing their mineral water in aluminium cans.

One market has proven reticent to explore aluminium packaging: the wine industry. For centuries now, wine has been overwhelmingly packaged and sold in corked glass bottles. One ambitious inventor, however, is on a mission to change that.

Vijay Manwani has used the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo to produce a unique piece of technology: a WiFi enabled aluminium wine bottle, complete with touchscreen.

The Kuvée, which Manwani compares to the highly successful Keurig coffee machine, costs $199 (£125) and functions by using aluminium wine cartridges that slide into the base of the main device. Each 750ml wine refill costs the same as a traditional bottle of wine.

The Kuvée's touchscreen is linked to sensors on the bottle that offers users useful information about the wine they are drinking: among other helpful details, drinkers can see how much is left in the bottle and what suggested food pairings would go best with each particular vintage. As a "smart" device, the Kuvée can even connect to an online store and help its owners order another bottle to enjoy that will then be shipped directly to their home. As helpful as these features are, the cleverest aspect of the Kuvée is what happens after it has poured a drink.

One of the biggest difficulties for wine drinkers is that bottles of wine do not keep well. Once opened, bottles of wine will keep for at most a few days on a kitchen counter or refrigerator. Even more expensive accessories that promise to keep oxygen out and prevent wine from spoiling cannot keep it fresh for more than a few days. The Kuvée solves this problem.

After pouring a drink, the aluminium wine canisters are resealed to stop oxygen entering the canister and spoiling the wine. In this way, wine can be kept fresh for up to 30 days (much longer than would be possible with a conventional bottle of wine). If wine can be stored longer then it becomes possible to have several bottles of wine open at once. For Manwari, this is the key selling point of the Kuvée: the guillotine valve seals each refill bottle, and it can then be taken out and replaced with a different bottle. Theoretically this means that everyone at a party could be drinking something different.

For Manwari, a self-described wine connoisseur, one of the tragedies of wine is that the time-honored packaging technology traditionally used for wine bottles – glass bottle and cork – doesn't allow casual or curious drinkers to taste and compare wines easily. With the Kuvée, a system that can open multiple bottles of wine at once and keep all of them fresh for an extended period, the hope is that those hoping to explore the world of available wines will be able to do so far more easily – democratizing the often-elitist wine world one hi-tech pour at a time.

Judging from the success of the Kuvée crowdfunding campaign, many wine drinkers are willing to give the idea a shot. In just 16 days, the Kuvée IndiGoGo page raised $109,181, or 218% of the $50,000 it was aiming for.