Sommelier Tests 10 Wine Gadgets

I feel like somebody's playing a practical joke on me now,

this seems so ridiculous

and we have to turn it off, right?

Because it's mesmerizing.

By the end of this, I'm gonna be like,

sold, I need two of these.

Hey, I'm sommelier Andre Hueston Mack

and today I'm gonna be testing wine gadgets

that you can find pretty much anywhere on the internet.

They're all designed to enhance

your wine drinking experience.

But the question is, do they really?

I definitely love fun gadgets.

I kind of nerd out about it.

I don't know what the gadgets are.

They're hidden somewhere around here

but I'm anxious to see what they look like.

First we're gonna take a look

at some gadgets for preparing and pouring your wine.

This is called the Cooper Cooler.

It's essential to serve wine

at the correct temperature to accentuate

or experience all the flavors that are in the wine.

When red wine is served too hot or too warm

the wine tends to taste hot.

All you taste is the alcohol

and it leaves for a bad wine drinking experience.

So we have this bottle of white wine here.

It's been at room temperature,

probably about 70 degrees.

If I wanted to chill this down super quick and fast

I would stick it in the freezer for 20 minutes.

The Cooper cooler claims that it could chill

this bottle of wine in six minutes.

Should we give this thing a whirl?

Let's pop the hood here.

Like, ah, [beep]

No, [laughs]

Okay, so we need to fill this thing with ice.

So we have our water here.

All right, so now we wanna lay our bottle

down to the right side of the roller.

We want to spin it.

I want to see it spin.

Let's see it spin.

Oh, [beep] this.

Ha ha ha!

Now this is fun.

If it was a vintage red or something like that,

I'd be worried about sediment flying everywhere,

so I wouldn't put it in here.

We're gonna let it run its course.

We're gonna let this go for six minutes

and then we'll check back in.

Let's check in.

[loud beep]

I don't even know if it's wine anymore.

All right, it is emerging from the crypt.

Okay, this is pretty cold.

It works.

It absolutely works.

So normally how we'd do in the restaurant

instead of so the label wouldn't be wet,

it would be put it in a plastic bag

and then we put it inside of a bucket

and we'd have to spin it.

It would be quite a bit of time you would spin it,

do all that, blah, blah, blah.

It's so funny, and I'm like,

can I get three of 'em and fit 'em

on the back shelf in my wine store?

Maybe that would work.

Nah, I wouldn't buy it.

I don't think most people would have room

on their counter for a one dimensional device.

It just seems over the top, but it does work.

Let's get a glass here.

I folded some laundry while it was chilling

and now I'm ready and now I'm back.

It's chilled.

It's not overly cold.

I could definitely put like a 16 ounce IPA,

one of those fancy IPAs in here

and let it spin and go to work.

But my only question was,

after all that spinning and it's pretty rough,

could I open it right away?

I felt like if I opened it,

maybe that it would just spill everywhere

and shoot everywhere.

All right, we're gonna do a quick test here.

We have little can here.

They actually have a can setting.

It's spinning pretty fast.

[can popping]

Aha, yes.

I have no idea what the hell this is.

This is Ullo wine purifier.

Removes sulfites.

I don't know why people would want to remove sulfites.

This looks like there's some

single bottle selective sulfite capturer.

This is where they get you.

The machine is free, it's the sulfite capturers here.

All right, we got a little carrying case here

in case we wanna take that to a party.

This part's supposed to come out.

Here we go.

So it's two separate parts here.

We open up our little sulfite filter.

So this goes here and then now this goes back on,

two clicks.

This device claims

that it's gonna remove sulfites from wine.

Sulfites are a byproduct of fermentation,

so every single bottle of wine has sulfites.

You might run into people who talk about

or talk about natural wine

and about it doesn't have any sulfites.

It doesn't have any added sulfites.

All wine has sulfites.

Added sulfites come in at a later date

when you bring fruit in from the vineyard.

And the interesting part is people

are under this misconception

that sulfites give them headaches

and it's really not the sulfites.

If you eat a slice of bread

that's really high in sulfites.

So it's the histamines that give people

the headache not the sulfites.

And a lot of times it's

because you're drinking cheap and [beep] wine

with sugar in it

that actually gives you the hangover.

But that being said, there's no reason

for me that I would use a device

to remove the sulfites.

Okay, so we're going to test it out here.

I'm just running through the filter.

It's aerating it too.

It does kind of to me strip some of the joy out of it.

I mean most of the joy out of it.

I don't feel like wine should,

you should have to do any of this to it.

And it looks like there's a little film

on the top here.

I don't know if that's bubbles or something,

but let's swirl.

It doesn't smell any different.

I think the only way to tell is pour another glass.

And this is funny.

So it totally looks different.

And here you have all of this

that looks like,

actually it looks like the [beep] that's in the filter.

There's a slight difference.

But to me the difference is whatever's

in the filter is now in the wine.

The fact that this thing exists

is just perplexing to me.

But I guess there's a market for it,

but to me it just seems like a waste of time

and a money grab

because you have to keep using the filters.

It's not a one time device.

My thing is like drink early,

go to sleep early, take a nap,

take some Advil, move on with your life.

Oh my God, what do we have here?

All right, so this is the Zwilling sommelier.

This is known as the Drop Ring.

Voila.

When we go to wine school,

we're taught to pour wine.

And how do you prevent a wine from dripping?

Generally wine will start to dribble down here

but you pour, and you pour it and now it drips and falls.

The correct way to pour a bottle of wine

without the mess is you're gonna start pouring

and then you want to turn and pull up.

And so it allows any drips that are coming to

fall back into the glass.

This device is to prevent drops of wine

falling on your tabletop while pouring wine.

So you wanna place this around the neck of the bottle.

I think it's on there as magnets.

And then we want to pour it.

And you can still turn,

but it will catch anything out.

So now the droplets fall here

and they're caught by the ring.

So this doesn't enhance the drinking experience at all

but I think for some people it's a practical thing

if they don't want a stain on a tablecloth.

But I would skip this.

You should skip this.

We're gonna take a look

at some gadgets to preserve your wine now.

This is called a Vacu Vin.

This is to preserve your wine.

After you open a bottle of wine

this is supposed to remove all of the oxygen

out of the bottle of wine

and keep it preserved and fresh

for the next time you wanna serve it.

Once wine is open and exposed to oxygen,

oxygen is the enemy and it starts to tackle wine

and break it down.

Exposed to oxygen,

the wine will deteriorate within a matter of days

and taste like crap.

You don't want your wine to taste like crap,

either drink it all that night

or you should use one of these.

If you put the cork back in,

all it is is just locking in the air that's in there.

So the oxygen in there is gonna break down the wine.

So with something like this,

we have these rubber stoppers

and these are inserted into the neck of the bottle.

And then you wanna put the pump

on top and then you're gonna start to draw air.

It doesn't go all the way down.

Now I'm like pulling,

so it's got some suction,

and then we pull off.

And so this has an airtight seal

it's taken all the oxygen oxygen

out and you can put this in your refrigerator.

And then the next day when you want to go back and open it,

you can crack the top.

These actually work.

And this is something that's been tried and true.

These are gadgets that you actually see in restaurants.

It's been proven in the battlefield.

Earns my recommendation.

All right, we're ready.

Look at this.

Aha, I knew it.

Ah, this is a wine condom.

Hmm.

Oh my. [laughs]

This is pretty funny.

So it's a wine condom.

It's packaged like a condom,

like a really small condom,

protection for wine lovers.

Okay, it's a finger condom.

Look at that.

This is really great marketing and really interesting.

You have a bottle of wine,

you don't have the cork to put it back in.

You want to use something else

and you roll this wine condom on top here.

Got a little hat there. [laughs]

Hold on, let me get the air out of here first. [laughs]

This is so dumb.

This is so dumb.

I see nobody's laughing.

So you're gonna make me go down with the ship, huh?

Nobody's laughing.

This would be to cover the wine so no oxygen gets in.

But then again we propose the problem

that there's already oxygen in the bottle already.

And so in theory, I think this would work

but I don't think it would work as well

as something that took the air out.

So I can see using something like this

if you have no class.

Generally speaking, once the bottle is open,

you've started the clock.

Generally what I tell people

is put the cork back in it

and put it back in the refrigerator.

Most people who enjoying a bottle of red wine

and don't finish it,

they just put the cork back on it

and leave it on the table.

And that might get you by.

But to be safe,

all wine that's been open should be re corked

and put back in the refrigerator.

I trust a cork better.

I wouldn't know if I could turn it upside down.

Seems to work.

And it's so funny.

There's air in here already.

So from turning it upside down

Is it gonna explode?

And again, it's getting bigger, right?

Oh my God, look at, look.

Oh, now it's coming out

[Andre laughing]

Okay, playtime's over.

I guess, pretty decent seal.

I think having a wine condom

and having that product exist

in the pretentious wine world,

I think is pretty funny.

There should be a place for it.

Why not?

It's America. [laughs]

Why not?

We're gonna look at some gadgets for aeration and decanting.

This is called Vinturi, elevating your wine experience.

This is a red wine aerator.

Aerate wine in seconds, not hours.

30 seconds through this aerator,

it's like three hours of it sitting in the decanter.

Okay? [laughs]

That's what it says.

All right, look at that fancy packaging.

This is a little stand that it sits in.

So this is a decanter and you can use a pitcher

but the fancy term for it is a decanter.

And because it has a larger surface

to volume ratio than say a bottle

that's where you're gonna get the air breakdown.

There's several reasons to put a wine in a decanter.

The main reason is for aeration.

So a wine has been in a bottle 15 years, 10 years,

and basically what you're doing

is you're introducing the oxygen into the wine

to help break down the wine slowly

to make it a little bit more palatable.

So tannins are these things that are big things

that feel chewy, suck the moisture outta your mouth.

By letting it aerate and by decanting the wine,

it takes away the sharpness of the tannins

and the wine becomes a little bit more

approachable in that way.

And especially for young wines,

you want decant them to let them breathe.

And basically this is supposed to speed up

the process of putting the wine into the decanter.

You pour the wine in here

and it sends it off into two or three different spouts.

It has holes in it, it might go down a spiral

but also you see these holes on the side here.

These are air intakes and that's gonna make it bubble

and that's gonna bring the oxygen in

and then it passes through here.

So let's give this bad boy a run for its money here.

So we just pour here.

So you hear the noise that it's sucking the air in

and it's just introducing air into the wine.

And that's that.

In the restaurant we used to do a thing

called turbo decanting

where we would decant one wine

and have two decanters and just pour them back and forth.

And the idea was to really agitate the wine

to get lots of oxygen in it,

to break it down,

to make it more pliable and soft.

This thing does that,

but you're kind of a D bag if you use it,

you know what I mean?

Like in all honesty, you know what I mean?

If I was somewhere and some dude pulled this out

and point, you're like, [beep] this guy.

There's something about it,

Even though it's practical.

I'm a traditionalist.

So I wouldn't purchase one of these.

I think for a lot of people,

we would prefer to just decant it.

Wine is steeped heavy in traditions.

Think about something like screw caps.

It took a long time for screw caps

to be accepted in the wine industry.

I think technology works

but I think it's gonna take some time

in getting used to of seeing these

integrated into restaurant service

and fine dining service.

Next up we have Uluxty.

This is a decanter experienced

by 20,000 wine lovers around the world.

A little snazzy red color here.

This seems to be ready.

I think we're gonna go ahead and prepare the wine.

I'm like so excited to see what it does.

If the lights just change

I'm throwing this [beep] out the window.

I'm telling you.

You might see me like talking to people,

walking around a dining room,

just constantly agitating the wine a little bit.

To me doing this seems a little bit more natural

than putting it through something that gurgles

and people think other people

in the restaurant are choking.

This might be kind of cool man.

And now we wanna push our button again here.

Isn't that exactly what I was doing?

[Crew Member] Yeah, but you had to do it.

I'm sold.

It's gently stirring the wine,

rocking the wine, gyrating the wine.

This is agitating the wine, introducing oxygen,

as you see the bubbles that come around here.

Man, I sound like a salesperson, huh?

It seems gentle.

That sound is annoying.

Maybe I'm the one that's crazy.

Maybe we're all gonna have robots,

but this is exactly what I was doing.

I mean, does it do the job?

Yes.

Now, I just need like a money gun

and just like shoot money up in the air.

This is ridiculous.

I'm done with this.

This is called the Spiral Aerator Decanter Set.

I feel like I should be in the lab.

Now this looks really complicated

and kind of feeds into the whole pretentiousness of wine.

It's a decanter with an aeration kind of system

set up within it.

And this goes here like that.

It's kind of like a roller coaster for wine.

When I look at something like this,

this is definitely something

that's about presentation, theater in a lot of ways.

All right, we have our wine.

Are we ready?

Make sure everybody has their safety goggles on.

We're ready to go here.

We're gonna pour.

It's pretty time consuming

but then again, it's like this is theater.

I think for some people this seems really fun.

And this is definitely not my jam

and wanting to be a purist

I would just much rather dump this in a decanter.

Maybe this is how they decant wine in the meth lab.

You know, it's just kind of like

kind of like they just hang out

and they just do stuff like this?

I'm sure if you went to a village in France

where they made wine and brought this with you

they would probably kick you out.

So now we're gonna take a look

at some gadgets to help you open your wine.

Le Creuset Sparkling Wine Opener,

original screw pull design combines elegance

and security when opening your sparkling wines.

Let's give it a go.

So we have little sparkling wine here, a little Prosecco.

So this looks like a claw machine

thing that comes down.

What's different here is that it's kind of sharp in here

in the inside almost kind of looks like a knife.

It's supposed to go on the top of this here

and then you can twist

and it gives you a little bit more leverage.

What is interesting to me is that it's asking me

to remove the cage.

So this thing works effectively,

but the problem is you have to constantly

keep your thumb on this.

So if we take this off like this,

this is where it gets unsafe in this area right here

I'm put keeping my hand on it in case it pops.

And then now we're gonna take this

and we're gonna put it on top

and it kind of has these little knives in it

that lets you push down

and kind of really grip the cork.

And then now you just turn and it's out.

And I get it,

you're basically getting a better grip on the cork

and you can get more torque when you're twisting.

I'm a professional,

so the idea of holding this thing and twisting it,

once you learn how to do it and do it,

you do it well quickly, efficiently.

For some people it's hard to twist.

And maybe this exists for people

who don't really know that you're supposed

to hold the bottle and twist the bottle.

Never supposed to take your hand off the top.

Having to remove the cage

seems just reckless in a lot of ways.

It definitely won't make your champagne

or your sparkling wine taste any better

and you might lose an eye.

This here is an electric wine opener.

Seems pretty lazy, but let's see how it works.

So it looks like we have a little stand here,

little electric charging base.

We have a foil cutter,

and I believe this just sits here like this and charges.

Let's see if it works.

So I think we put it here like this

and you have to ply a little pressure

and you need to hold the bottle steady.

And now it's starting to pull the cork out,

and voila, we're done.

And then you actually push the up and it ejects the cord.

Is it practical?

In my world, probably not.

And that's only because I've opened

millions of bottles of wine

and I'm much more comfortable using a wine key.

Even for me, opening up 20 bottles

of wine with this is like death.

It just seems so slow.

It's kind of like using an electric pepper grinder.

It's a little bit more fun to turn the wrist kind of thing.

But I can see how this is cool to people

and how it would fit into that pseudo wine lifestyle.

It works, but I wouldn't buy it.

That was pretty fun.

Definitely interesting.

Made me think a lot.

Do I really need this?

I understand the functionality behind them,

but somehow just felt

like just with a little bit of effort,

you didn't need that.

And you can actually save your money

and spend it on the actual real thing,

which is the wine.

You shouldn't be influenced or bombarded

with a lot of this flux that really doesn't matter.

What it really comes down to is enjoying the wine.

If you're at somebody's house

and they're like, yeah,

my dad is really into wine,

or so-and-so's really into wine

and they have one of these,

you probably want to leave.