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Hurry Up And Drink

January 30, 2009 06:00 AM ET | Sue Guerra | Permanent Link

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Sometimes a glass of wine is all I need to deliver me from the frazzled circumstances of daily life. Anyone who has experienced rush hour at the Lincoln Tunnel can certainly relate to this.

I want these moments with my glass of wine to be unhurried, relaxed, contemplative. Whenever possible they should be wedded to good food, good friends, and good conversation. They are not to be rushed, manipulated, or controlled.

So it was with some amusement that I read a recent New York Times article by Harold McGee in which he describes a number of devices (some of them exorbitantly expensive) intended to speed up the aeration of wine by means of magnets, metals, and embedded frequencies not to mention other far-fetched methods. According to the Times, these items are marketed to customers who “can’t wait for their wines to taste their best.”

Suspecting that this obsession with speeding things up—controlling the natural order—is a particularly American phenomenon, I remembered a transaction that took place a few years ago in an ancient little wine shop in the Umbrian hillside town of Perugia. The proprietor, a man named Lorenzo, was explaining the attributes of the local wine Sagrantino di Montefalco. Gently holding each bottle as if it were a cloud, he kissed it before handing it to me.

While reading McGee’s article, I could not help but wonder how Lorenzo would react to the suggestion of dipping a $100 copper disc into a glass of his beloved Sagrantino in an effort to induce “the same effect as one year of cellar aging.” No doubt, he would have bristled at the thought. 

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Tags: wine



Comments

Hah, first.

I actually have come into contact with these devices, well, selling them (http://www.bellobene.de/shop/essen-trinken/detail/p/11861/). Apparently, they add oxygen while pouring and are supposed to do in seconds, what usually takes hours. To be honest, I have never tried it. I poured bad beer through one of these, and the bad beer became better bad beer, but not good beer.

As for taking the time, here are my 50cents: I almost can’t stand drinking coffee in 5 mins without sitting down, I want to enjoy the taste. Similarly, when we had guests over for New Year’s Eve, we opened two bottles of wine in a decanter five hours before the guests came. And see, it tasted awesome.

If I were called to judge, I’d say it fits in with visiting 5 Euroean countries in 3 days ;-)

Posted by: Sebastian Keil, None | Jan 30, 2009 08:20:06 AM |

faster faster

Totally agreed. The idea of rushing wine seems crazy, wrong, and antithetical. where are we all rushing to???

Posted by: laura schenone, None | Jan 31, 2009 08:03:04 AM |

Slow down and enjoy

I have a better idea for those who “can’t wait for their wines to taste their best.”
Just take the bottle at its main portion, hold tight, and slam it at the edge of the counter. If the impact comes within a 45° angle, the bottle breaks right at the neck and opens without the use of a silly cork screw.
Thus, the sudden exposure of oxygen to the liquid adds "that special taste" within a blink of an eye. Pour into a glass,
use a strainer or be brave.

And then: bottoms up.

Fast, inexpensive and reliable.
What more you can ask for.

À votre santé!

Posted by: Tom Bloch, Stuttgart, Germany, None | Jan 31, 2009 10:36:54 AM |