Daniel Eros Carnio, the founder and director of Oenofuture, looks at the best wine gadgets on the market to vamp up your drinking experience this year.
Although we’ve been making and drinking wine for thousands of years, the fast-paced technological developments and scientific discoveries of recent years have transformed the wine industry and changed the way we enjoy wine. Today we are able to appreciate wines with a greater attention to detail and enhanced flexibility which simply was not possible in the past.
Some of these clever innovations have made wine consumption completely different and revolutionised the world of fine wine. A true wine lover and connoisseur must have some of these gadgets, if not all of them, to be able to fully appreciate the complexities and subtle nuances of great wines.
The starting point of a great collection of wine is a proper cellar. Storage is always an issue and keeping bottles in ideal conditions, even at home, can be extremely challenging. The ideal gadget to solve the wine collector’s problem is Eurocave. This is a leading brand for wine storage cabinets offering solutions for any space available. The UV filtering door, shelves which absorb vibrations, and control of humidity and temperature allow for the perfect storage. The Eurocave is perfectly suitable both for a short period and for a long maturation process as in a true connoisseur’s wine cellar.
Now that the storage problem is solved, the complicated part starts: the service. A loyal companion of every professional sommelier is his bottle opener. There are many models available but we always recommend to opt for a double lever which allows you to pull the cork straight up without breaking it. Laguiole, an iconic brand in knife and corkscrew manufacturing, produces some of the best and most prestigious bottle openers in the market. It’s a true must-have.
What about if we decide to open an old Vintage Port or a Château Cheval Blanc 1982? Chances are that the cork is old and likely to break. A true wine collector, for this reason, should always have available a bilame bottle opener. Substantially different from a classic corkscrew, the bilame is essentially a double blade that slides between the cork and the bottle, making it almost impossible to break the cork.
The bottle is open, and now it needs to be drunk. The choice of glasses in the market is truly impressive but a wine connoisseur drinking the best should only serve great wines in the finest glasses. Austrian have some of the top brands in the market: Zalto and Riedel. Both brands create crystal glasses with a dedicated shape for each type of wine from Burgundy to Bordeaux to specific grape varieties like Syrah or Riesling. On top of this, Riedel designs unique shape decanters for perfect aeration of a great wine. There’s just one problem – everything is extremely fragile!
Now you’ve found your perfect glass, let’s imagine you really feel like having a glass of Sassicaia 2001. You are storing it in your cellar as a future treasure, but you don’t want to pull the cork just yet. So, how do you taste it? The solution is simple and fairly accessible to anybody: Coravin. This gadget has revolutionised the wine industry allowing both wine lovers and professionals to access the precious liquid inside without opening a bottle.
Coravin is a hypodermic needle that pierces the cork and, with a push of a button, releases Argon gas within the bottle. This makes “pouring” the wine very easy. When you are done just pull the needle up and the cork will seal the bottle again. The really clever idea here is that the bottle remains fully sealed so the wine can be kept for months after you’ve tasted it using the Coravin.
All these gadgets make a wine lover’s life so easy, but also allow him to fully enjoy every bottle in his wine collection. The most prestigious and exquisite wines require attention and precision. Details do matter. The wrong glass or poor storage can ruin a bottle and turn a unique experience into a nightmare. Fortunately, though, we now have more tools than ever at our disposal to appreciate the world’s finest wines in all their glory.
