If you consider yourself a wine lover, there are some must-haves that should be right next your bottle. There is a plenty amount of items that could improve the whole experience, with some of these instruments working to preserve your wines on their fullness, while others allow them to remain optimal for consumption.
Even though some of these accessories are extremely expensive, none of them need to be extremely expensive for your budget: remember that it is always better to invest your money in a good bottle of wine. Creativity has no limits in the forms, colors, materials and designs of wine accessories; therefore, we have chosen some of the simplest, most versatile and manageable types of attachments, which will help you to optimize the ritual of tasting this awesome drink.
Wine Glasses
A nice wine glass can change your drinking experience in many ways. First of all, it is better to drink in a glass because it allows the wine to oxygenate properly; moreover, it is more comfortable to put the nose in if you want to perceive the smell of it. Another advantage of the glass is that you can hold it to prevent the wine from getting hot. Depending on the wine that you are going to drink, tere are many types of glasses available. It is recommendable for the glass to be as thin as possible, smooth and transparent.
Wine Holders
If you have a wine collection and you want to put it on display, a wine holder might be a good choice for you. There is a lot of choices, you can buy wine racks that hold multiple bottles or maybe just one or two. The swap meet in Chino/Ontario has a vendor that sells beautiful wine holders. He sells them every Saturday at stall PP24. His name is Banlate and you can call him at (626) 923-0112 if you have questions about his wide variety of wine racks.
Corkscrew
While there are some wines bottle that use a thread, the vast majority are closed with cork. There are many types of corkscrews: lever, folding or waiter, with wings, electric or compressed air. For several, the most comfortable, easy to use and simple is the two-stroke folding corkscrew, also has a small knife to cut the capsule of the wine. You can find one for less than $10! But some other higher-end options are more visually fetching, but not double-hinged. This is something that could make the process of removing a cork a bit trickier, especially on luxury level wines stoppered with extra-long corks.
Wine decanter
There are wines that need to be decanted for some time before drinking them, especially if they are aged; so that the wine is oxygenated and releases all its aromas. In fact, exceptionally old wines are often the absolute worst to decant aroma-wise because time already may have weakened their aromatic intensity to the point that it’s crucial to preserve rather than further evolve aromas.
Wine cooler or ice bucket
Having a reliable way to keep a wine bottle at the right temperature – especially white, rosé and sparkling – is important. An ice bucket or wine cooler allows you to keep your wine at the right temperature. The wine bucket should be deep enough to allow the ice (with a little bit of water and salt added) to come up to the bottle’s shoulder, or the slope before the long, tubular “neck”. You should check dimensions before you buy it. A lot of “ice buckets” are just that. They are meant to hold ice for cocktails or other drinks and are not intended to be large enough to keep wine bottles cold.
Wine stopper
Done sipping for the night but there’s still wine in the bottle? Keep it there, and keep it from spoiling by using a good stopper. When you open a bottle of wine, the best and most advisable thing to do is to drink it all to avoid oxidation through the air. Otherwise, these stoppers will largely avoid that contact with the air. And if you want to keep the sparkling wines, there are suitable stoppers for this purpose.
Wine preservation system
As reality has it, not every bottle will be finished on the night it is opened, even if you’re a big wine fan, it is inevitable you’ll end up with a half-empty bottle once in a while. Happily, there are plenty of wine gadgets for preserving your wine for a night or two, if not longer, depending on the system.
Even if you’re not a wine drinker, remember that a good bottle of wine deserves to be served properly, so make sure you have the right accessories on hand to properly open the bottle, oxygenate liquid, and serve it to you and your guests.
Visit Maclin Swap Meet to see the products that they offer. Are you looking for Piñatas? This swap meet has them too, read my entry about it and get to know the person that sells them there. Here’s a short video of the wine holders on display at this swap meet. Also download my Swap Meet Shops app to see the products they are offering from the App Store and Google Play.