I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format.
They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read them), and are presented links to help you find them, so that you can try them out for yourself. Cheers!
The virtual ink is barely dry on the previous edition of a wine product review roundup, and yet I find myself compelled to offer yet another (consider it a bonus?) roundup for the month of August, with the pending release of the 8th Edition of The World Atlas of Wine (Octopus Publishing, 416 pages, about $65).
image: Amazon.com
The Atlas is, of course, the work of Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, the former of whom I consider myself a fan-boy of, and the latter of whom I’m fortunate enough to consider an acquaintance (the first time that I met her, in Portugal, she tried to introduce herself to me, at which point I countered with something along the lines of “no, that’s not how this meeting is going to go down; you’re amazing, and I’m an insect!”… real smooth on my part). Its release is always newsworthy in the fine wine world; this is the first major revision to the tome since the 7th Edition back in 2013. it’s widely – and justifiably – considered an essential resource for anyone serious about obtaining fine wine knowledge, and it has no equal in terms of painting portraits of the best of the wine world’s terroir locations. But is it worth shelling out $60-some-odd?…
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format.
They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read them), and are presented links to help you find them, so that you can try them out for yourself. Cheers!
Has it really been almost three months since we did a wine product samples roundup on 1WD? Shame on me – though, in my own defense (against myself), my backlog of non-edible product samples, while certainly not non-existent, kind of pales in comparison to my backlog of drinkable samples (and those are usually more fun, anyway).
Since we are so long overdue… today I have a trifecta of samples from HiCoup Kitchenware, all of which I can recommend (one happily, another surprisingly, and a third, uhm… aesthetically-pleasingly?).
Available in too many finishes to mention here, our first item is their take on the trusty ol’ waiter’s friend corkscrew (my personal fave design for wrestling cork from bottle in almost every non-sparkling circumstance). This unit has good heft and stability in the hand, seems well-made in its metal sturdiness, and in my case featured an easy-on-the-eyes rosewood handle.
Interestingly, HiCoup’s is more-or-less identical to my current recommendation, the Barvivo, but slightly undercuts it in price. And I really do mean slightly… as in, by about one dollar. So, you more dutiful penny-pinchers out there might want to check this one out if the penny-pinching is getting particularly pinchy.
I have long hated the design of our next sample, a “wing” style corkscrew (see intro pic above). Like the Dallas Cowboys, there is almost nothing whatsoever to love about or redeem this design, which usually combines jettison-the-bottle-violently-off-the-table instability with a cartoon-super-villain-Mole-Man-underground-tunnel-borer style screw that apparently was invented to destroy natural cork both during insertion and extraction.
So… given all of that, I’m a bit shocked that I am actually recommending this product; because if you absolutely need one of these winged menaces, HiCoup’s is constructed well (though not as well as the waiter’s friend), and contains an honest-to-goodness thread (modeled after those on better corkscrews) that glides much more easily into the cork and doesn’t attempt to access wine by tearing the stopper to shreds.
Finally, we have a small stylistic wonder in HiCoup’s lead-free crystal, hand-blown decanter/carafe (see inset pic). This is a pretty thing to behold, and a fun item to use, and (more importantly) does a decent job of both decanting and adding a bit of aeration upon pouring.
The real meat with the potatoes, for me, is that, being hand-blown, no two will likely be exactly the same, and with that kind of construction and utility, you’re not getting fleeced on price just for a fancy, uhm, decanter-envy design. It’s stylish without being overtly ridiculous, and its only real drawback is that it’s probably a bitch to clean properly (I wouldn’t know, I am deliberately avoiding trying the latter until I have no other choice…).
David Creighton on Blah Blah Blah, Natural Wine, Blah Blah Blah: “So, some questions: Is pruning grapevines natural are jacketed stainless steel tanks and chilling must natural? is…” Aug 2, 11:35
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