Wine and Saran Wrap: Friends or Incompatible Strangers?
My friend recently received a wine aerator as a birthday gift. Many of you have probably seen this device, but it was a new toy for me. The process is very simple – as the wine is poured down through the top hole, two tiny pathways on opposite sides of the conical super-decanter rapidly suck in air, thereby bringing the wine into contact with a large amount of oxygen in mere seconds. It is a nifty little thing, especially the sound it makes. Reminds me of a mechanized Gary Vaynerchuck of Winelibrary TV sucking in oxygen as he swirls the wine in his mouth. But once the Christmas-like joy of playing with the new toy fades, its usefulness and necessity also withers and this $50 tube goes into a kitchen drawer, waiting for a dinner party of unsuspecting wine drinkers who might be impressed by such a gimmick.
There are several other types of wine flavor and character-altering creations which have recently worked their way into the oenological spotlight. I read a great article today by Harold McGee in the Dining & Wine section of the New York Times which reviewed the effectiveness of two up-scale wine toys: the Wine Wand (which speeds aeration by using “permanently embedded frequencies, one of them being oxygen.”), and the Clef du Vin, or “key to wine” (which uses copper and trace amounts of silver and gold to supposedly induce the same effect as years of aging in mere seconds). The reviewers did not conclude the testing with any miraculous wine-world-altering results, and the writer’s two friends (one, a professor of wine chemistry at Davis, the other a specialist in oxidation reactions) explained why in layman’s terms. Please read the article for details regarding their findings…
The ‘Clef du Vin’
The most intriguing part of this article was a home-remedy, however. Apparently, the off-flavor of a corked wine can be removed (or, I am guessing at least drastically decreased) by pouring the wine into a bowl with plastic wrap. So simple! I have not tried this myself, but will do so at the first opportunity as it is a process which can supposedly save (or at least save for cooking) a corked wine. According to Andrew Waterhouse (the professor), ‘”It’s kind of messy, but very effective in just a few minutes,” he said. The culprit molecule in infected corks, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, is chemically similar to polyethylene and sticks to the plastic.’ Neato, I say, let’s try it out! But you can’t exactly go to your local wine shop and ask for a corked bottle of wine. So I wait. And for the first time in my life, I actually wait in anticipation for a corked bottle of wine! But what can I say, I am a sucker for simple home remedies, and this one could turn into a neat party trick.
Have any of you tried this? Any other simple home remedies that I should know about? Please let me know…Leave no wine behind!
January 7th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
It worked! It worked!!! Wow, what a totally non-intuitive idea. But I just came home after a long, long day and opened a bottle of red to find the cork wet. Almost cried but went to the internet instead, and here I am. Have a cold, so don’t know if the fix is perfect, but all the vinegaryness is gone. Thanks!!!