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Wine Gadget Review: Menu Wine Thermometer

Wine Gadgets

Written by Fred Swan

Created on Tuesday, 06 April 2010 08:00

The temperature at which wine is served makes a big difference in how it tastes. If wine is too cold, the fruit flavors and aromas are decreased. When a wine is too warm, the perceived acidity is minimized while perceived alcohol and sweetness are increased. Though finding the ideal temperature for a specific bottle is impractical, there are general guidelines to follow based on the type of wine being served.

Once you know at which temperature you want to serve a wine, you have to be able to determine what temperature the wine actually is. Knowing the ambient temperature of the place in which the wine has been stored is a good start. But, if you don’t want to serve the wine at that temperature, you’re going to need some sort of thermometer to track the wine’s temperature as you cool it or allow it to come up to temperature. That sounds like a job for a wine gadget! Some months ago, I saw the Menu Wine Thermometer in the shop at New York’s MOMA. It seemed like it might be handy, and it looked cool, so I bought it. The price was $36.

The Menu Wine Thermometer was designed by Jakob Wagner of Denmark and manufactured in China. It looks a bit like a wristwatch. It has a circular black plastic face surrounded by a bezel of brushed silver metal. The face is attached to a semi-circular and semi-rigid black plastic band with a nice “soft-touch” matte finish. Integrated into the band directly behind the dial are a temperature sensor and a pressure sensor.

When you slip the band around a wine bottle, it grips the bottle well. The back of the sensor/dial mechanism is curved so that it fits snugly against the curved bottle. Once the Menu Wine Thermometer is on a bottle, the pressure sensor is activated. Then, the device begins checking the temperature of the bottle. That temperature is displayed on the face in large, easy-to-read, gray on black LCD numbers.

How Lindsay Lohan’s Alcohol-Sensing Bracelet Works

Wine Gadgets

Written by Fred Swan

Created on Friday, 28 May 2010 19:17

Lindsay Lohan’s new bracelet was big news last week. Despite her foray into the fashion industry, the bracelet has nothing to do with haute couture. It is all about preventing more of her DUI rampages. (Her last DUI arrest was in 2007, but she has repeatedly violated the terms of her parole, hence the bracelet.)

The SCRAM bracelet, made by AMS, will analyze her perspiration as it evaporates between the bracelet and the skin on her wrist or ankle. The device works with levels of perspiration so low that it would be imperceptible to long-lensed paparazzo and even LiLo herself. Readings are taken every half hour.

Once per day, the bracelet communicates wirelessly with a base station that is connected to a phone line in her home. The base station then sends data to a central server. The people responsible for monitoring her can do so from any web browser. The data appear in a graph like the one below where the mountain shape in the black line shows that someone has been naughty.

If Lindsay Lohan needs to leave town to make a paid appearance at some dance club or to play Linda Lovelace in a movie, she will take the base station with her and plug it in at her hotel. Lohan claimed a stolen passport prevented her from returning from Cannes Film Festival in time for her recent court date. I wonder if she'll try "the maid stole my base station" as an excuse in the future.

Lohan is determined when it comes to partying. There are unconfirmed reports that, when she was ordered to wear a SCRAM bracelet in 2007, she tried to interfere with the signal using a paperclip and confuse it by wearing a lot of perfume, which is high in alcohol, and tea tree oil which is... good for your hair. She might be able to confuse the device by doing all her drinking and metabolizing while standing in a swimming pool, but she can't drive while in a pool so the goal of the device would still be achieved.

The SCRAM devices are said to be tamper proof. The IR Voltage line (in blue above and below) indicates that a device has been removed or that a foreign object was placed between the device and the skin. In the chart below, you can see high plateaus indicating the device was interefered with. AMS says that these devices have been used on 135,000 people and have never been effectively fooled or disabled. Tampering with or removing the device is a parole violation and would land the wearer in jail.

Monitors such as these are very effective at determining if there has been an episode of alcohol consumption. However, there is a delay between the time of alcohol consumption and the time when it has been sufficiently metabolized to be measurable by the device. Therefore, these devices can't be used in real-time to prevent drinking and DUIs. There will be no dramatic interventions. Even if there wasn't a sensing lag, the device only communicates with the base station once a day in most cases. The deterrent is the wearer's knowledge that any alcohol consumption will be noticed within a day and that such an episode will result in a parole violation and certain jail time.

Typically, the court sentences only call for a person to wear the device for three or four months. One aspect of the device may discourage alcohol abuse even after the courts have allowed it to be removed though. The things are big, ugly and embarrassing. While they may not be visible on a pants-wearing dude, they are a fashion faux pas for ladies who wear skirts or, as is often the case with Lindsay Lohan, even less.

There's a $1,500 penalty for damaging or defacing the devices. That's chump change compared to the fees Lohan gets for party appearances though and she's looking for ways to dress bracelet up a bit. It's too bad for her that leg warmers aren't in anymore.

Though Lindsay Lohan and the gossips columns that make sport of her tend to focus on everything except the harm that drunk driving can do, it is a very serious issue. According to the NHTSA, 11,773 deaths resulted in 2008 from U.S. traffic accidents in which one of the drivers involved was over the legal blood alcohol limit of 0.08. That accounted for more than 30% of all the U.S. traffic fatalities that year.

Fortunately, drunk driving fatalities have been in decline. According to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) that was actually a decline of nearly 10% from the previous year and about two-thirds lower than in 1980. This is due to a combination of awareness campaigns, more strict enforcement, safer vehicles and better medical care. However, it's also estimated that as many as 75% of those people whose driver's licenses are suspended due to DUI continue to drive. That is the reason products such as the SCRAM bracelets are being used.

Follow NorCalWine on Twitter for breaking wine news, information on events and more. Become a fan and join the NorCal Wine community on Facebook. Also check outour comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. Photo of Lindsay Lohan by Clark Samuels/Startracksphoto.com. The movie poster as published by the photographer, Tyler Shields, on his blog. No attribution to the poster artist is evident. The photo on Lindsay Lohan's Twiiter page are also by Tyler Shields. The SCRAM graphs are the property of AMS. All rights reserved.

Cool Wine Stopper!

Wine Gadgets

Written by Fred Swan

Created on Wednesday, 01 September 2010 18:38

Did you ever find a partially-consumed bottle of wine in the fridge but not remember when you put it there? If so, this is your wine gadget. Mad designer George Lee of le mouton noir & co. has created it so that you can hide your forgetfulness with high-tech coolness. It features gnarly gnurled dials that let you tune in the date of stoppering.

My thinking is that if you can’t remember how long it’s been there, the wine is probably best put in a vinegar barrel rather than your glass. That said, this one great looking wine stopper. [via gizmodo]

Black sheep George Lee has designed some other tableware that exhibit elegance with a dollop of twisted practicality. My favorite is this tea cup that keeps the tea bag in place.

A bit more fanciful is this jigsaw puzzle salt and pepper set with “storage spaces.”

I also love his spinning postcards. If you like the one below, check out his website to see more.

If you enjoyed this article, please share it! Icons for popular sharing services are at the right above and also below.

Follow NorCalWine on Twitter for breaking wine news, information on events and more. Become a fan and join the NorCal Wine community on Facebook. Also check outour comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. All rights reserved. Photos from, and presumably property of, le mouton noir & co.

Protect Your Wine Bottles In-Transit

Wine Gadgets

Written by Fred Swan

Created on Thursday, 01 July 2010 19:17

It’s always the same story. You buy a couple of bottles of wine while on a business trip. While packing your suitcase for the flight home, you lovingly wrap each bottle in lingerie or your best shirts to avoid breakage. The bottles are then carefully nestled between slacks and shoes and socks and more slacks. Suitcase zipped, circuitous taxi-ride to the airport endured, you check in for your flight with Air Despair. The attendant gloms a destination tag onto the handle of your suitcase and then lovingly heaves it toward the conveyor belt. Your eyes go wide as the bag flies in slow motion to an unbelievably high apex, hangs in the air for a moment and then plummets at full speed into the gray plastic bin which trundles on, unconcerned.

In the back, baggage handlers are practicing for the annual forklift races. They carefully position your bag to mark the outside of turn 3 — a nasty hairpin after the longest straightaway. Driver after driver viciously punts your bag across the room while failing to negotiate the turn. Unaware of all this, you sip on bad airplane water as your bedraggled luggage is finally loaded onto the plane. You daydream about drinking that wine.

After a long relaxing flight filled with bumps in the night, crying children and some drunken business guy who makes Tarzan calls until he’s Tazered by a sky marshall, you skip merrily to the baggage claim. Good fortune! Your bag is first off the conveyor which rises from the abyss! But your smile fades and your face blanches when you see the bag looks as if it had been dragged along the ground for the entire flight, tethered to the plane by an impossibly long cable.

Back at the house, you are agitated and distracted. You kiss the dog, pat your spouse on the head and put your suitcase on the bed. You open it slowly, carefully. Inside, everything you had packed is now the same cheerful color of red. You recoil in horror then carefully start feeling around in the bag to see if anything survived unscathed. But not carefully enough! A shard of wine bottle glass slices your hand, an injury that requires thirty-seven stitches and ends your career as a concert brain surgeon.

But none of this had to happen. You could have used VinniBag. To quote the manufacturer, “VinniBag is a reusable travel bag with inflatable air chambers that protect and insulate wine bottles, other liquids, and fragile items. It’s designed to provide superior protection against impact and leakage, is easy to use, and stores flat, rolled or folded when not in use.”

But when would you not use it? They say it can also function “as a bath pillow, headrest, or great lumbar support while you’re stuck at your desk.” It’s Made in the USA and is recyclable. It’s VinniBag!

By the way, this might be just the thing to go with those stainless steel wine glasses. The perfect gift ensemble for your favorite wine and hiking geek!

I’ve seen them in stores, and now online, but haven’t tried one yet. If nothing else, it should be fun to test. They sell for $28 or $25 each if you buy more than one. If you’ve used one, leave a comment letting everyone know how you like it.

For the record, I don't know anyone at the company and am not compensated in any way if you buy a VinniBag.

If you enjoyed this article, please share it! Icons for popular sharing services are at the right above and also below.

Follow NorCalWine on Twitter for breaking wine news, information on events and more. Become a fan and join the NorCal Wine community on Facebook. Also check outour comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2010 NorCal Wine. All rights reserved. Banner photo of Fokker by TMWolf.