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Sommelier Tests 10 Wine Gadgets | World Of Wine | Bon Appétit

Sommelier Tests 10 Wine Gadgets | World Of Wine | Bon Appétit

I feel like somebody's playing a practical joke on me now this like seems so ridiculous and we have to turn it off right because it's mesmerizing by the end of this I'm be like sold I need two of these hey I'm s Andre Houston Mac and today I'm going to be testing wine gadgets that you can find pretty much anywhere on the internet they're all designed to enhance your wine drinking experience but the question is do they really I definitely love fun gadgets I kind of nerd out about it I don't know what the gadgets are they're hidden somewhere around here but I'm anxious to see what they look like first we're going to take a look at some gadgets for preparing and pouring your wine this is called the Cooper cooler it's essential to serve wine at the correct temperature to accentuate or experience all the flavors that are in the wine when red wine is served too hot or too warm uh the wine tends to taste hot all you taste is the alcohol and at least for a bad wine drinking experience so we have this bottle of white wine here it's been at room temperature probably about 70° if I wanted to chill this down super quick and fast I would stick it in the freezer for 20 minutes the Cooper cooler claims that it could chill this bottle of wine in 6 minutes should we give this thing a whirl let's like pop the hood here like sh no okay so we need to fill this thing with ice so we have our water here all right so now we want to lay our bottle down to the right side of the roller we want to spin it I want to see it spin let's let let's see it spin oh sh it's going now this is fun if it was you know a vintage red or something like that I'd be worried like you know sediment flying everywhere so I wouldn't put it in here we're going to let it run its course we're going to let this go for 6 minutes uh and then we'll check back in let's check in it's like I don't even know if it's wine anymore all right it is emerging from the Crypt okay this is pretty cold it works it absolutely works so normally how we do it in the restaurant instead of so the label wouldn't be wet we put it in a like a plastic bag and then we put it inside of a bucket and and we'd have to spin it it would be quite a bit of time you would spin it do all that blah blah blah so funny and I'm like can I get three of them that fit on the back shelf in my wine store maybe that would work N I wouldn't buy it I don't think most people would have room on their counter for a onedimensional device it just seems over the top but it does work let's get a glass here folded some laundry while it was chilling and now I'm ready now I'm back it's chill it's not overly cold I could definitely put like you know 16 o IPA one of those fancy ipas in here like let it spin and go to work but my only question was is like after all that spinning and it's pretty rough could I open it right away I felt like if I opened it maybe that like it would just spill everywhere and shoot everywhere all right we're going to do a quick test here we have little can here they actually have a can setting it's spinning pretty [Music] fast aha yes I have no idea what the hell this is this is ulo wine purifier remove sulfi es I don't know why people would want to remove sulfites okay this look like there's some single bottle selective sulfite capturer this is where they get you right the machine is free it's it's the sulfite capturers here all right we got a little carrying case here in case we want to take that to a party this part is supposed to come out here we go so it's two separate parts here we open up our little sulfite filter so this goes here and then now this goes back on Tre clicks this device claims that it's going to remove sulfites from wine sulfites are a byproduct of fermentation so every single bottle of wine has sulfites you might run into people who talk about and talk about natural wine and about it doesn't have any sulfites it doesn't have any added sulfites all wine has sulfites added sulfites come in at a later date when you bring fruit in from the vineyard and the interesting part is people are under this misconception that sulfites give them headaches and it's really not the sulfites if you eat a slice of bread that's really high in sulfites so it's the histamines that give people the headache not the sulfites and a lot of times it's it's because you're drinking cheap and wine uh with sugar in it that actually gives you the hangover but that being said there's no reason for me that I would use a device to remove the sulfites okay so we're going to test it out here just run through the filter it's air rating it too it you know it does kind of to me strip some of the joy out of it I mean most of the joy out of it I don't feel like wine should you should have to do any of this to it and it looks like there's a little film on the top here I don't know if that's like bubbles or something but let's swirl doesn't smell any different I think the only way to tell is pour another glass and this is funny so it totally looks different and here you have like all of this that looks like actually it looks like the that's in the filter there's a slight difference but to me the difference is whatever is in the filter is now in the wine the fact that this thing exists is just perplexing to me but like I guess there's a market for it but to me it just seems like a waste of time and a money grab because you have to keep using the filters right it's not a onetime device my thing is like drink early go to sleep early take a nap take some Advil move on with your life oh my God what do we have here all right so this is The Zing s this is known as the drop ring voila uh when we go to Wine School we're taught to pour wine in how do you prevent a wine from dripping generally wine will start to dribble down here but you pour and you pour and now it drips and Falls the correct way to pour a bottle wine without the mess is we going to start pouring and then you want to turn and pull up and so it allows any drips that are coming to fall back into the glass this device is to prevent drops of wine falling on your tabletop while pouring wine so you want to place this around the neck of the bottle think it's gets on there as magnets and then we want to pour and you can still turn but it will catch anything El so now the D the droplets fall here and they're caught by the ring so this doesn't enhance the drinking experience at all but I think for some people it's a practical thing if they don't want to stain on a tablecloth but I would skip this you should skip this we're going to take a look at some gadgets to preserve your wine now this is called a vacu ven this is to preserve your wine after you open a bottle of wine this is supposed to remove all of the oxygen out of the bottle of wine and keep it preser served and fresh for the next time you want to serve it once wine is open and exposed to oxygen oxygen is the enemy and it starts to attack a wine and break it down exposed to oxygen the wine will deteriorate within a matter of days and taste like crap you don't want your wine to taste like crap either drink it all that night or you should use one of these if you put the cork back in all it is is just locking in the air that's in there so the oxygen in there is going to break down the wine so with something like this we have these rubber stoppers and these are inserted into the neck of the bottle and then you want to put the pump on top and then you're going to start to draw air it doesn't go all the way down now I'm like pulling so it's it's got some suction and then we pull off so this has an airtight seal it's taking all the oxygen out and you can put this in your refrigerator and then the next day when you want to go back and open it you can crack the top these actually work and this is something that's been tried and true these are gadgets that you actually see in restaurants you know it's been proven in the battlefield earns my recommendation all right we're ready look at this aha I knew it I knew it ah this is a wine condom this is pretty funny say a wine condom it's packaged like a condom like a really small condom protection for wine lovers okay it's a finger condom look at that this is really great marketing and really interesting you have a bottle of wine you don't have the cork to put it back in you want to use something else and you roll this wine condom on top here got a little hat there like hold on let me get the air out here first this is so dumb okay this is so dumb I see nobody's laughing right so you're going to make me go down with the ship nobody's laughing okay this would be to cover the wine so no oxygen gets in but then again we posed the problem that there's already oxygen in the bottle already uh and so in theory I think this would work but I don't think it would work as well as something that took uh the air out so I can see using something like this if you have no class uh generally speaking like once the bottle was open you started the clock generally what I tell people is put the cork back in it and put it back in the refrigerator most people who enjoying a bottle of red wine and don't finish it they just put the cork back on it and leave it on the table and that might get you by but to be safe all wine that's been open should be recorked and put back in the refrigerator I trust the cork better I wouldn't know if I could turn it upside down seems to work and it's so funny there's air in here already right so I'm turning it upside down is it going to explode and and it get it's getting bigger right oh my God look at look oh now it's coming out okay PL time's over I guess pretty decent sale I think having a wine condom and having that product exist in the pretentious wine world I think is pretty funny it should be a place for it why not it's America why why not we're going to look at some gadgets for ation and decanting this is called Venturi elevating your wine experience this is a red wine airator air rate wine in seconds not hours 30 seconds through this air raater is like 3 hours of it sitting in a de canner okay that's what it says all right look at that fancy packaging this is a little stand that it sits in so this is a decanter and you can use a pitcher but the fancy term for it is a decanter and because it has a larger surface to volume ratio than say a bottle that's where you're going to get the air breakdown there's several reasons to put a wine in the caner the main reason is for airation so a wine has been in a bottle 15 years 10 years and basically what you're doing is you're introducing oxygen into the wine uh to help break down the wine slowly to make it a little bit more palatable so tannins are these things are big things that feel chewy suck the moisture out of your mouth U by letting it air rate and by decanting the wine it takes away the sharpness of the tannins and the wine becomes a little bit more more approachable in that way and especially for young wines you wanted to can them to let them breathe and basically this is supposed to speed up the process of putting a wine in the caner you pour the wine in here and it sends it off into two or three different spouts it has holes in it it might go down a Spyro but also you see these holes on the side here these are air intakes and that's going to make it bubble and that's going to bring the oxygen in and then it passes through here so let's give this uh bad boy a run for its money here so we just pour here so you hear the noise it's sucking the air in and it's just introducing air into the wine and that's that in the restaurant you know we used to do a thing called turbo decanting where we would decant one wine and have two decanters and just pour them back and forth and the idea was to really agitate the wine to get lots of oxygen in it to to break it down to make it more pliable and soft this thing does that but you're kind of a deag if you use it you know what I mean like it's like like in all honesty like you know what I mean like if I was somewhere and some dude pull this out and like Point you're like this guy there's something about it even though it's practical I'm a traditionalist right so like I wouldn't purchase one of these I think for a lot of people we would prefer to just to can it wine is steeped heavy in Traditions think about something like screw caps it took a long time for screw caps to be accepted in the wine industry I think technology works but I think it's going to take some time and getting used to of seeing these integrated into restaurant service and fine dining service next up we have uxy this is a a decer experienced by 20,000 wine lovers around the world little snazzy red color here this seems to be ready uh I think we're going to go and prepare the wine I'm like so excited to see what it does if the lights just change I'm throwing this out the window I'm you might see me like talking to people walk walking around a dining room just constantly like agitating the wine a little bit like to me like doing this seems a little bit more natural than like putting it through something that gurgles and like people think other people in the restaurant are choking this might be kind of cool man and now we want to push our button again here a't that exactly what I was doing yeah but you had to do it I'm sold it's gently stirring the wine rocking the wine gyrating the wine like this is agitating the wine introducing oxygen as you see the bubbles that come around here man I sound like a salesperson huh it's seems gentle that sound is annoying maybe I'm the one that's crazy maybe we're all going to have robots but you know this is exactly what I was doing I mean does it do the job yes now I just need like a money gun and just like shoot money up in the this is ridiculous I'm done with this this is called the spiral air raater decanter set I feel like I should be in the lab this looks really complicated and kind of feeds into the whole pretentiousness of wine it's a decanter with an airation kind of system set up within it and this goes here like that it's kind of like a roller coaster for wine when I look at something like this this is definitely something that's about presentation theater in a lot of ways all right we have our wine are we ready make sure everybody has their safety goggles on right we're ready to go here we're going to pour it's pretty time consuming but then again like you know it's like this is theater I think for some people this seems really fun and this is definitely not my jam and wanting to be a purist I would just much rather dump this in a deaner maybe this is how they decant one in the meth lab you know it's just kind of like they hang out and they just do stuff like this I'm sure if you went to a village in France where they made wine and brought this with you they would probably kick you out so now we're going to take a look at some gadgets to help you open your wine L cruset sparkling wine opener original screw pole design combines elegance and security when opening your sparkling wines let's give it a go so we have little sparkling wine here a little prco so this looks like a claw machine thing that comes down what's different here is that it's kind of sharp in here in the inside almost kind of looks like a knife it's supposed to go on the top of this here and then you can twist and it gives you a little bit more leverage what is interesting to me is is that it's asking me to remove the cage so this thing works effectively but the problem is is you have to keep constantly keep your thumb on this so if we take this off like this this is where it gets unsafe in this area right here I'm put keeping my hand on it in case it pops and then now we're going to take this and we're going to put it on top top and it kind of has these little knives in it that let you push down and kind of really grip the Cork and then now you just turn and it's got and I get it you're basically getting a better grip on the Cork and you can get more torque when you're like twisting I'm a professional so like the idea of holding this thing and twisting it like once you learn how to do it and do it you do it well quickly efficiently for some people it's hard to twist and maybe this exists for people who don't really know that you're supposed to hold the bottle and twist the bottle never supposed to take your hand off the top having to remove the cage seems just um reckless in a lot of ways it definitely won't make your champag or your sparkling wine taste any better and you might lose an eye this here is an electric wine opener seems pretty lazy but let's see how it works so it looks like we have a little stand here little electric charging base we have a foil cutter and I believe this just sits here like this and charges let's see if it works so I think we put here like this and you have to apply a little pressure and need to hold the bottle steady and now it's starting to pull the cork out and voila we're done and then you actually pess the up and it injects the C is it practical in my world probably not and that's only because I've open millions of bottles of wine and I'm much more comfortable using a wine key even for me opening up 20 bottles of wine with this is like death it just seems so slow it's kind of like using an electric Peppa grinder it's a little bit more fun to like you know turn the wrist kind of thing but I can see how this is cool to people and how it would fit into that pseudo wine lifestyle it works but I would buy it that was pretty fun definitely interesting made me think a lot do you I really need this I understand the functionality behind them but somehow just felt like just with a little bit of effort you didn't need that and you can actually save your money and spend it on the actual real thing which is the wine you shouldn't be influenced or bombarded with a lot of this flux that really doesn't matter what it really comes down to is enjoying the wine if you're at somebody's house and they're like yeah like my dad is really into wine or so and so is really into wine and they have one of these you probably probably want to leave

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