What’s your favourite wine paraphernalia?


When I took a photo of my cellar, my eyes also opened on just how much space was taken up by the associated paraphernalia. I suppose I do enjoy looking at it and it all gets used so it’s all very worthwhile, practical and aesthetic to boot. My favourites are the hand painted risqué chiller done by my eldest daughter, the pewter puffer fish aerator and our slowly evolving collection of Dingle crystal. What’s yours?

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What’s that iron fish for? :slight_smile:

It’s an ugly thing that sits in the top of the decanter

We seem to have a huge number of glasses, for me a £1 Ikea wine glass is perfect as its got a wide bowl and its tapered, its fairly big but works well on basically all non sparkling wine:

Other than that I actually find that my Wine Society waiter’s friend corkscrew is really good, its sturdy and has an inbuilt foil cutter (rather than pointless knife).

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I bet it works just as well on sparkling wine. I also use IKEA glasses… for now, but that Zalto Burgundy glass is always smiling at me from the top shelf at my local wineshop

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We haven’t really got much in the way of paraphernalia (unless you count the glasses), but current favourite is a ‘Menu’ wine decanter carafe. We got it as a thank you present from Spanish friends we hosted last Christmas. It supposedly aerates the wine really quickly, and so far seems to be doing just that! The nice thing is that it also allows you to pour the wine back to the bottle with no mess- which I prefer. I think there’s something a bit more exciting (romantic, perhaps?) about enjoying wine out of its bottle; looking at the label conjours up the location, the vintage and any other associated happy thoughts that I never seem to get from staring at a decanter… :wink:

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Thinking of wine glasses, I remember a comment by the late Clement Freud who wrote that the important thing about a wine glass is that it has a hole at the top and no hole at the bottom!

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How about useless wine paraphenalia? There’s a lot of it about.

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ISO tasting glasses and some Burgundy glasses I picked up in Fleurie about 15 years ago.

Wrong category methinks :innocent::hushed::rage:

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That’s a whole new topic there …:wink:… This is my contribution


:woman_facepalming:t3::woman_facepalming:t3::woman_facepalming:t3:

My Coravin, no question, & the silver goes to my waiter’s friend which I bought in Provence & therefore reminds me of a great holiday every time I use it.

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Yeah, for me the Coravin too. So good for sweet wine including port and the rare bottle of more pricy stuff.

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Is this an aerator?

They claim it can reduce sulphites in wine :joy::joy:& for the bargain price of £70 can be all yours !

But yes essentially aerates :wine_glass:

Not exactly useless but not up to the job.
When the original Screwpull came on the market it seemed like a good idea so I purchased one, all was well, though I thought they were a bit flimsy.
I had a bottle with one those tight fit compound corks of the time, and inserted the Screwpull, no problem, then I started to turn to extract the cork and it was hard going for you have to hold the Screwpull tight with the lugs on top the neck so it wont pull down over it.
This was hard work and the cork was resistant so I gave up and took the Screwpull out of the cork to find it had been stretched to 50% longer than when it started, true story, and no I never purchased another one.

Coravin, no question.
And yes, IKEA glasses may be perfectly practical; but the Zalto’s are a delight to hold and use.

If you prefer looking at the bottle, why not decant, then place the empty bottle in a nice silver bottle coaster (e.g. DrEm’s first picture, bottom R) on the table for viewing pleasure? Or rinse the bottle, and un-decant after a few hours back in to the bottle for serving.

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Oh yes, good suggestion! Although what we usually do now is let it breath for an hour or longer (depending on the wine) then use the ‘Menu’ decanter spout to pour the wine back in the bottle. It does the job beautifully, with no mess :grinning:

Wine aerator , Wine Venturi, quite handy and has a very good gauze filter. Most importantly it makes a highly satisfying slurping noise when used.

Paraphenalia favourite? Erlenmeyer flasks as decanters:

-Stable on the table (copyrighted :grinning:),
-Wide mouth makes cleaning easy,
-cheap (£10 for a 1000cc)
-I like the lab vibe too. Only a few ultra traditionalists get a bit sniffy about using them for wine, get the cut glass out for them.:smile:

For cleaning I rinse with normal water, final rinse with filtered water, flick dry and then stick the flask on the gas hob for a couple of minutes to fully dry. Don’t try that with your posh crystal.

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I love that idea … I was tempted for a while, but have already amassed a collection of decanters over the years, so not much call for even more.

My wife likes to know how much wine she is drinking so I bought her a personal size measure and was looking for some like these for just 250ml but not easy to find (or expensive in small quantities)