At this point in my wine drinking career, I’ve decided the only technology I need to enjoy wine, beside a glass, is a corkscrew. I will admit to owning a wine refrigerator – purchased at the behest of the Contessa – but otherwise I keep the wino-tech to a minimum. I’m not a born Luddite, but I’ve grown into one so far as the sundry tchotchkes and devices sent to me to evaluate as an accredited member of the media.
Some can be quite handy, I suppose. The various re-corking gadgets I receive are probably of use to someone who isn’t superstitious about finishing the bottle, which is to say, not me. Other wine technologies, however, should never have left the lab. Consider the agrichemical conglomerate that pioneered “powdered wine,” which boasted it was “Kool-Aid for the connoisseur,” until word of the trail of dead lab monkeys caused the project to be kyboshed.
Other ill-fated products include the Som-Bot, an “electronic sommelier” that suggests wine-pairings when one enters menu information. An issue, manufacturers later discovered, was that the device routinely recommended wines that were too pricey. When asked to suggest a more affordable label, it would balk and turn itself off. A similar product, the Technotaster, could identify the varietal, vintage and other properties of a wine from a mere splash. However, it would occasionally continue asking for additional sips to identify a wine – “additional” meaning half the bottle, after which it would slur its words and make forward comments to my wife.
I ruined a shirt testing the motorized “swirling glass,” which was really more of a wine-frother due to the fact that its only speed setting seemed to be “typhoon.” Had I received the neoprene “wine bib” earlier I might have fared better, but I’d be summarily arrested and justifiably beaten by the fashion police. The DentoVino, a slip-on dental guard, prevents wine from staining your teeth purple, but it also prevents wine from getting into your mouth. The result is that I looked like a punch-drunk boxer slobbering on myself when I’d rather have been slobbering drunk on boxed wine.
I recently received a press release that inverted the usual “grape to glass” model of coverage endemic to local rags. The PR firm touted a technological breakthrough that does the opposite, literally taking wine from “glass to grape.” When the dutiful flack called to follow up, I kindly corrected her error only to be corrected myself. I was asked if I had any wine in the office and if she could come over and demonstrate. Unable to stymie my need to impress strangers, I promptly corked a bottle of Benziger syrah, a case of which I keep under my desk at the office. Before I could complete my know-it-all patter about biodynamics, the publicist had transformed my fine wine into a glassful of grapes. I was first astonished, then quite aggravated.
“Why?” I demanded. “What’s the purpose? You’ve ruined a perfectly good glass of wine.”
“I know, huh?” came her reply. “But taste one of the grapes.”
Reluctantly, I plucked one of the blue-gray orbs like a precious bauble from my glass. The publicist goaded me again to taste it.
“It’s sour, right?” I chided her. I popped the grape in my mouth. She did the same. The moment I crushed the berry between my molars she and I were suddenly entwined in trellises, grape vines weaving around our limbs. We dangled precariously above the vineyard floor, suspended by the vines. The publicist spat out a leaf and announced: “Tourists will love it.”
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At this point in my wine drinking career, I’ve decided the only technology I need to enjoy wine, beside a glass, is a corkscrew. I will admit to owning a wine refrigerator – purchased at the behest of the Contessa – but otherwise I keep the wino-tech to a minimum. I’m not a born Luddite, but I’ve grown into one so far as the sundry tchotchkes and devices sent to me to evaluate as an accredited member of the media.
Some can be quite handy, I suppose. The various re-corking gadgets I receive are probably of use to someone who isn’t superstitious about finishing the bottle, which is to say, not me. Other wine technologies, however, should never have left the lab. Consider the agrichemical conglomerate that pioneered “powdered wine,” which boasted it was “Kool-Aid for the connoisseur,” until word of the trail of dead lab monkeys caused the project to be kyboshed.
Other ill-fated products include the Som-Bot, an “electronic sommelier” that suggests wine-pairings when one enters menu information. An issue, manufacturers later discovered, was that the device routinely recommended wines that were too pricey. When asked to suggest a more affordable label, it would balk and turn itself off. A similar product, the Technotaster, could identify the varietal, vintage and other properties of a wine from a mere splash. However, it would occasionally continue asking for additional sips to identify a wine – “additional” meaning half the bottle, after which it would slur its words and make forward comments to my wife.
I ruined a shirt testing the motorized “swirling glass,” which was really more of a wine-frother due to the fact that its only speed setting seemed to be “typhoon.” Had I received the neoprene “wine bib” earlier I might have fared better, but I’d be summarily arrested and justifiably beaten by the fashion police. The DentoVino, a slip-on dental guard, prevents wine from staining your teeth purple, but it also prevents wine from getting into your mouth. The result is that I looked like a punch-drunk boxer slobbering on myself when I’d rather have been slobbering drunk on boxed wine.
I recently received a press release that inverted the usual “grape to glass” model of coverage endemic to local rags. The PR firm touted a technological breakthrough that does the opposite, literally taking wine from “glass to grape.” When the dutiful flack called to follow up, I kindly corrected her error only to be corrected myself. I was asked if I had any wine in the office and if she could come over and demonstrate. Unable to stymie my need to impress strangers, I promptly corked a bottle of Benziger syrah, a case of which I keep under my desk at the office. Before I could complete my know-it-all patter about biodynamics, the publicist had transformed my fine wine into a glassful of grapes. I was first astonished, then quite aggravated.
“Why?” I demanded. “What’s the purpose? You’ve ruined a perfectly good glass of wine.”
“I know, huh?” came her reply. “But taste one of the grapes.”
Reluctantly, I plucked one of the blue-gray orbs like a precious bauble from my glass. The publicist goaded me again to taste it.
“It’s sour, right?” I chided her. I popped the grape in my mouth. She did the same. The moment I crushed the berry between my molars she and I were suddenly entwined in trellises, grape vines weaving around our limbs. We dangled precariously above the vineyard floor, suspended by the vines. The publicist spat out a leaf and announced: “Tourists will love it.”
Related posts: