Wine gadgets.

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with my friend Dave, who I had not seen in years. We started the night at Stephos Greek Taverna for dinner. We shared an order of cheese balls, then I ordered their chicken souvlaki pita, and Dave ordered the chicken souvlaki. Our meals were delicious (and cheap!) and the company was even better.

After we left Stephos we sauntered down toward English Bay and popped into the Bayside Lounge which, from the outside, does not look like anything special. The bar has a circular design full of windows so everyone gets a view. We grabbed a couple of cheap drinks (they have daily drink specials) and found a table. When Dave got up to go to the washroom I started chatting with the couple sitting next to us and made a new friend, Catherine.

Catherine invited me to a networking event for start-up companies and entrepreneurs at the Lions Pub downtown. We went and had a really great time!

While at the event, I spoke with a very nice gentleman named Michael who has a company that sells miniature wine decanters designed to decant one glass at at time. This product is called the centellino. I was skeptical about the actual function of the gadget. The idea is that the wine will aerate in the centellino decanter better than it will in the glass. I do not believe this to be true. The pitch was that people do not want to decant inexpensive bottles of wine because they do not believe the long process of decanting will improve the wine. This is also false. Not to say that all wines will improve after spending a bit of time in a decanter but it never hurts to let your wine get a little bit of air before consuming it.

If you are not going to put your wine into a proper decanter anyway, you may as well just pour it into your glass to swirl (which also aerates the wine) and enjoy. The centellino is certainly impressive looking for a novice wine drinker but for me, I can not see myself using this product because I believe in the old fashioned swirl of the glass to let my wine breathe. That is not to say that the centellino does not work, it is just redundant. Michael was so generous as to give me one to try at home so if anyone would like to give it a try I would be more than happy to have a glass of wine (or two) with you using the centellino so you can judge for yourself.

I encourage you to check out the website and judge for yourself. I am only here to give my honest opinion.

Check out this link to an introductory video if you are not sure how it works. It is in Italian but there are English subtitles. It's only about 30 seconds long.

These are tough times.

I very recently moved back to Vancouver from Calgary and have been drinking wine with my best friend Melissa quite often since being back. Mel just started a new job and got a new apartment in the west end of Vancouver and I am unemployed and looking for work while staying with my dear friend Kathy (Also in the west end). The job market here is not as terrible as I originally thought because I am getting interviews, I am just extremely impatient.

During these difficult economic times we have to be careful about spending too much money (especially since I am unemployed) so Melissa and I are on to drinking what we refer to as "Recession wine" (Which, before the recession was called "Party wine") It is not great, it is not terrible it is just cheap. You can find some pretty good wine for $10 - $12 if you know what to look for. We should be able to drink wine often without having to sell our kidneys to be able to afford it. Mel and I like to mix it up by trying new, cheap wines but have found a couple of favourites that we often go back to. One bottle that I have really enjoyed at under $10/bottle is Fuzion Shiraz/Malbec. It is an Argentinian wine with smooth soft tannins and a little bit of spice and vanilla. It is a very easy wine to drink and has been nice to enjoy with great company. I am going to try a new bottle tonight which I plan on purchasing at this great wine shop called Sutton Place Wine Merchants downtown. They have an amazing selection and extremely knowledgeable staff (What more do you want from a wine store?)

On another note, the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival is coming up at the end of March and I already have my ticket for the trade tasting. This year there will be wines represented by 182 wineries around the world. Every year they pick a different wine region to feature and this year it is B.C. so 58 of those wineries will be from here. I am so excited about the tasting this year because I love a lot of the wines that have come from my beautiful province and like to support local wineries. The tickets run at $89 each but if you get a group of 8 or more people and buy in bulk the tickets are $80. This event is worth every penny and I promise you will not regret spending the money.

If you have not purchased tickets yet I suggest you do so immediately. Go. Do it. I am not kidding.