Use of gadgets and technology are storming up the wine industry as the UK’s fine dining restaurants are fast adopting electronics in their wine lists, with the Vineyard at Stockcross becoming the latest to embrace the iPad.

According to a Decanter.com report, the trend that started at the beginning of the century with Aureole in Las Vegas, the contents of whose four-storey, stainless-steel-and-glass wine tower that diners browse via an ‘ewinebook’, has now gone global.

“These days, I’m using an iPad more than a corkscrew,” Ronan Sayburn MS, wine director for the Hotel du Vin chain said. “We’re trialling them in Birmingham and 90% of our customers have liked them.”

The list of UK restaurants that now present customers with an iPad instead of a paper wine menu is getting longer every day. Several of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, Asian-fusion restaurant Australasia in Manchester, London’s Rib Room, and the Vineyard, which has one of the most comprehensive American wine lists in the country, have gone the eway.

“It will give our guests the opportunity to better look at our long wine list and easily access their preferences, but without replacing our interaction,” Vineyard head sommelier Yohann Jousselin said.

Not everyone is equally keen, however, with several high-ranking professionals expressing doubt.

Andrew Connor, of Luytens restaurant in London, for one, says, “Air-conditioning broken, reservation systems crashed, lights gone crazy – I prefer a low-tech solution where possible.”