Sunday, June 23, 2013

Kitchen Gadget of the Month: June edition

I love wine.    I can almost see you rolling your eyes and mentally thinking............."um - duh!"

Ok, so my love of wine is a no-brainer.  A brief check of my facebook page and you'll see a lot of posts about wine - nearly as many as there are about bacon.

My journey with wine started in my 30's.  Never had a taste for it before - my ex didn't appreciate it at all.  It all began with a work colleague, a warm summer evening, and a back porch.  She served me a chilled glass of white wine.  Can't remember what wine it was, but it was delicious.  I started experimenting with wine on my own from there.  My first favorite wines were white and a bit on the sweet side.  Took a few years to lose my taste for the sweeter wines (unless paired with a dessert) and really start appreciating dryer white wines and finally dry red wines.  I think this is a typical  progression.

I am fortunate to live nearby to a fabulous winery - a multiple award winning winery - San Diego International Wine Competition Winery of the Year for 2012:  Wollersheim Winery in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.  Wollersheim celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2012 - what a nice exclamation point!  This is a must see if you are ever in South Central Wisconsin.  They truly have spectacular wines at very affordable prices.  Their Dry Riesling sells for $9 a bottle and took home this year's Wine of the Year at the San Diego International Wine Competition.

In 2011 I made my first trip to Napa/Sonoma with hubby and our bestest friends.  THE BEST VACATION EVER.  We brought home several cases of wine and I am proud to announce that we still have some unopened bottles.  We would return in a heart beat.

So you've picked out the perfect wine for your dinner tonight, but do you have the perfect wine bottle opener?  Sure you can use your basic cork screw.  They work and are cheap.  Or you can graduate to the kind that the waiters use in restaurants - these give you a blade to cut the foil away and also give you a lever to assist in opening the bottle.  Then there are the fun "rabbit ear" openers.  I used one of these for many many years.


But I have found THE perfect wine opener.  The Oggi 3-Piece Wine Bottle opener is my June Kitchen gadget of the month!  It comes with its own foil cutter.  Pop it on the bottle, squeeze the handle down and the cork screw "worm" works its way into the cork.  Pull up on the handle and the cork pops out!  Then close the handle again and the cork slides off of the cork screw worm easy peasy.  I can't imagine opening a bottle of wine without one now.  Get yours today at my amazon store:  Oggi 3-Piece Wine Bottle Opener

Cheers!