Vinfolio.com

If you're a regular wine consumer, you can no doubt remember some occasions when you've had too much to drink.  While you shouldn't be drinking and driving at all, at least developing a self-awareness of your exact blood alcohol level by using a breath alcohol testing device can help modulate your consumption or stop you from driving drunk.

In the future, you might also encounter an alcohol breath testing service as you depart a corporate or private event.  Springwise, the global trend-spotting site, posted a brief story about Blow Me, a UK-based company offering such services.  With a name like that, it's hard to believe they haven't been in the news more often.

Lest you thought Reidel's stemless "O" wine tumblers were the last innovation in wine glassware, a British friend visiting San Francisco recently for a tech conference spotted this "inside out" glassware at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  It's the work of a young Dutch designer (but apparently Brooklyn-based), Alissia Melka-Teichroew, also known by her initials AMT.

The description on her site about the Inside Out Collection states:

"The shape of a drinking glass reflects its content: columnar flute for champagne, curvy goblet for wine, short shot glass for straight liquor, stout highball for cocktails. But what if only the negative space of glasses assumes these iconic shapes? That’s the premise of AMT’s line of Pyrex glass barware. All glasses have the same outer shape, but pour in a drink and the glass’s inner identity appears."

P.S.   A pair of Champagne glasses goes for $60 at Charles & Marie.

This cool gadget can be pointed at a wine glass or bottle and immediately tell you the temperature to the tenth of a degree (F or C). Measuring only 2" x 4" and weighing only a few ounces, it's the perfect item to take along to restaurants to ensure your wine is served at the right temperature. It comes in its own soft sided case with a strap.

Vinfolio is giving one of these away (while supplies last) with any first-time wine purchase from us of $1,000 or more. A $59 dollar retail value, you can claim yours by visiting Vinfolio's wine store and placing a qualifying order. You must also either mention the "thermometer promotion" in the special instructions of your order or in an email to service@vinfolio.com after your ordered is placed. It is not for sale separately.

Give a decanter. Specifically, a magnum-sized decanter.

Many wine collectors will buy magnums (or larger formats) for long-term cellaring as they tend to preserve the wine better than 750ml bottles due to a lower ratio of oxygen to wine in the bottle. While most wine collectors may have a couple of decanters, they aren't likely to have a magnum-sized decanter.

In fact, of the 15 decanters I own, only two are for magnums. There is something festive about large format bottles and that same is true for magnum decanters. If you have a great bottle of wine (which is very likely to require decanting), why not present it in something beautiful? Britain's William Yeoward is one of my favorite sources for decanters and I personally own two of the classic but modern Geneviere design which comes in four sizes ranging from 400ml to 3200ml (sized for half bottles to double magnums).

Decanters may or may not have stoppers and many new designs avoid them for more flexibility in design. However, I generally prefer them with stoppers so I can avoid drinking too much and safely "gas" what is left for consumption over the following few days.

An article in today's Wall Street Journal called "Old wine, new bottle" (WSJ online subscription required) discusses the decanter market's growth. It points out that Reidel's sales of decanters doubled from 2004 to 2005 (now accounting for 10% of its business) and that it has introduced six new styles in 2006. Even Williams Sonoma has almost doubled its decanter offerings in the past two years to 17 today.

My final suggestion is to buy early as magnum decanters are harder to come by and the design you prefer may not be easily located at the last minute.