The Wine Hacker.com

Monday's Wine Hack - Drink a Toast to the SF Giants!

I am one day late on my wine hack of the week - but here it is.....drum roll  please......  This year once again, our beloved SF Giants triumphed in the World Series.   What better as a "hack of the week" but to drink a toast to our home team?  

I searched for logo SF Giants glassware, and didn't have far to go.  Amazon has an affordable set of two glasses (you have to have someone to clink glasses with) that can be ordered through the below  link.  I plan to get a full set as a good luck charm for next year.   Two years in a row, anyone?  

 

57W8MUTVTS3F 6XUSCY2XZXZN

Wine Hack of the Week - Vacu Vin

Starting today - Monday's will be "Wine Hack" days, featuring a new gadget, idea or process chosen to help increase my reader's enjoyment of good wine.  The most obvious "hack" that has had the biggest impact for me has been the Vacuvin wine saver. 

This nifty little gadget comes with a hand operated vacuum pump and little rubber stoppers for the top of your bottles, preventing over-oxidation that can make a $50 bottle of wine taste like rat pee in a matter of days.   And it's very easy to use, all you have to do is pop the little stopper into the wine bottle, put the pump on top of it and pump out the air until the pump won't move any more. 

 

You see, no matter how good of a job you do putting a cork back in the bottle, you can't put it in like it was originally.  That means oxygen can get into the bottle - a little oxygen is a good thing and exposing wine to the atmosphere is what is meant when serious wine drinkers talk about "letting the wine breathe".   But too much oxygen will kill a person, or a good bottle of wine.  You know that a red wine is over oxidized when it tastes like salad dressing (yeah, it sounds nicer than rat pee). 

According to the manufacturer, you can expect your wine to remain fresh for up to 2 weeks - and you can use Vacu Vin for anything except sparkling wines.  

Although this may be old news, as most serious wine drinkers have at least a few bottles with Vacu Vin stoppers in them at all times - I love mine enough that I thought it deserved its own blog post!   It allows me to enjoy a good wine just a glass at a time, or to save a bottle not finished after a dinner party.   

 

 

Wine, the iPhone, and Getting the Most for Your Money

If you are like me, you enjoy trying new wines.  This means pacing back and forth amongst the rows and rows of wines at Bevmo or the grocery store, trying to make sure you have something novel and interesting that doesn't taste like lark vomit.   But alas, no matter how much you try, lark's vomit does indeed happen from time to time.  This is not disasterous unless you are taking it to a dinner party, or worse, a home for dinner  with the boss.  

How do you prevent these tastebud terrors?  Use your iPhone and grab the Wine Ratings app from iTunes.   

Designed for use within restaurants, this app shows you a picture of the label and a rating very quickly.  It has the largest database of any wine app on the market, I have yet to find a wine that it doesn't contain.   

It also shows the average price, which allows you to see if you are getting a good deal or getting taken for a ride!  

I love the pairings guide, and the Quick Picks are very useful if you want to plan what you pick up before hitting the store.   Here is what you see when you click on an individual wine: 

 

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this app!   At $3.99, it was a bargain as it has undoubtedly saved me from many bad purchases.   

Etsy Little Wine Lover STUFF!

I am a little late to the party, but I have just discovered Etsy.com which is a haven for artists, creative people, and people like me who love having unique trinkets with character to display.  A fun thing to do with Etsy is to create a "Treasury" , which is a collection of items around a theme that you choose from all the individual crafty stores on Etsy.  You select them and put them into a grid, and Etsy creates a URL around the title you give your collection.  It is as if you are a museum curator and the Internet world is your audience!  

My latest theme creation  is Wine.Roses.Romance, these corks are one of the amazingly romantic wine-themed crafts I found listed from a wedding store owner that were so beautiful, I had to share them. 

This is as much fun as going to an antique show or art and wine festival, without having to leave your easy chair.   My little collection of "finds" includes some hand painted wine glasses,  a wine glass painting, and a bouquet of roses and corks.   There are many wine themed items on Etsy, but this little collection is made of up special tidbits that were both wine themed AND romantic.   

I hope you enjoy my little treasury, I had fun creating it.  Etsy also has bulk wine corks for sale, which are great for crafts.