With this year screaming past quicker than I have time to keep up, Christmas is gonna be upon me before I know it....

That means only one thing: I'll be challenged with the annual question of what do you want for crimbo ?

so stumbled across this: Wine thermometer
Now I don't really NEED this but christmas isn't christmas without an unnecessary gadget IMHO.
Besides, it might actually be useful and it looks pretty cool.
At 20 quid its a good "a little sommething to open" type gift....(might treat a few friends to one)

Anyway, as per the thread title the other thing I was thinking to mention was glassware.
A decanter/carafe perhaps and some nice glasses.

Now I've got loads of wine glasses already but these are just general glasses that I have picked up on the cheap in M&S or House of Fraser type places.

Is there any point in going for specialized glasses (likes of Riedel grape specific etc) or better to just settle for a decent ISO type tasting glass? or alternatively just stick with what I've got?


summary: wine themometer looks a fun little prezzie & what do you recommend for carafe & wine glasses ?

...but is one enough ? I saw this in a paper recently, but your link did lead me to the can't-do-without Elvis chopping board, and Hoodies salt/pepper set.
Not for a present of course but for c.£5 for 4, Wilkinsons do a "medium" glass at approaching a pint (500 ml) and "large" at somewhat over a bottle (800 ml).

Already have a "bottle of wine in a glass" glass in one of our kitchen cupboards...

Only used for midweek drinking where I limit myself to a glass a night....

How about this?

http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/prod ... kstop&ID=9

I like it, now we can take a decent bottle of wine to bbq's/party's and get to drink it all!!! (Imagine your hosts face as you hand them a bottle of Mateus Rose and a fine claret with the lock on! )

looks to be a cruder version of one of these: http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/toys-gam ... ne-puzzle/

however, I would actually like to get into my bottles so is of little interest.


No serious opinions on carafes and glasses then ?

Glasses? Sorry no, I refuse to pay for expensive glasses, I break them too often. I dont go in for wine gifts, just buy me wine if you must.

However I do have an eclectic mix of fine and rare wine/port glasses that I have found in charity/antique shops over the years. Plus a few very old corkscrews.

A nice decanter will always come in handy.

Or how about a life membership to The Wine Society? £40 last time I looked.

Also- my wife bought me a years subscription to Decanter Mag once, this was very much appreciated.

yeah - had the decanter subscription. Was a nice gift to receive

I too have the dreaded glass-breaking syndrome. I have a ship's carafe from a charity shop at £2.99 but it's a pig to wash and dry. The other cunning ploy is, a bit like shezza, when the doc asks about how much I drink I cheerfully reply "only a couple of glasses a day or so".

In a more serious vein, the different glasses direct the flow of wine to different parts of the mouth. This is supposed to keep certain wines off the acid detectors, others off the bitter etc. A blog on the Maj site reckons the same wine tastes differently when drunk from different glasses. I am a leetle sceptical.

Yeah, I have read about this on the Riedel website before.

Am a bit gutted actually because there was a Riedel wine tasting at Vinopolis earlier this month that I couldn't make.
Basically I think the format was to sample the same wine from different types of glasses to prove that the specific grape glasses make a difference.

Tickets were a modest £60 (for probably no more than 6 wines) but you did get to walk out with a 4 glass Vinum XL tasting set (worth £65+ (or £90 according to the invite ))

Personally I fail so see how the glass shape can effectively channel liquid to diffferent parts of the tongue.
Would have been interesting to see whether there was a noticable difference tho


In the meantime it sounds like I should be scouring my local charity shops for glassware....

I am sceptical too.

Even if the glass shape does offer very subtle changes in flavour by channelling wine in certain directions, surely this is automatically increased / negated by the difference in tongue shapes?

Some people have very slim tongues, others, like Jamie Oliver, have fat tongues.

hahah !

Post of the week !

I have an article planned for mid November on Christmas presents for winos. Will use this thread to search out the good (or really fabulously bad) ones.

_________________
mel

[quote="Bacchus"]
Not for a present of course but for c.£5 for 4, Wilkinsons do a "medium" glass at approaching a pint (500 ml) and "large" at somewhat over a bottle (800ml)

To what is this world coming? Went in today for re-supply (see glass-breaking syndrome) ----- no longer stocked.....BAH!