Unless the wine you drink comes out of a box, you probably empty a least a few bottles every month. And you probably drop the empties into a recycling bin. That’s a responsible thing to do, though just 28% of glass bottles get that treatment in the U.S. Apparently, most people just throw them away. [The link is to an EPA PDF.]

Not only does recycling keep the bottles out of landfills where they last eons — about one million years in fact — it saves energy. Recycling just ten bottles saves enough energy to run a laptop computer for an hour. [The link is to an EPA Excel spreadsheet that calculates the energy value of recycling various materials.] And for every ton of glass recycled, 1.2 tons of raw materials are conserved.

Of course, recycling consumes energy too. Recycling a bottle requires two-thirds the energy it would take to make a new one. If we can re-purpose a few wine bottles here and there, we can save energy and reduce carbon emissions. We might be able to save a few dollars too. Here are six ways you can re-use your empty wine bottles.

“Tiki” Torches
Add mood lighting to your outdoor parties, and shoo the insects, by turning some wine bottles into oil lamps with industrial chic. The photo below comes from Gerardot & Co. which also has complete instructions for the project. [If you like the blue bottles, you might drink some La Sirena Moscato d’Azul.]

Rolling Pin
The super smooth, non-stick surface of glass is ideal for use as a rolling pin. It works especially well when chilled.

1. Remove the label from an empty Cabernet-style wine bottle by soaking it in water. Make sure to get all of the glue off too.

2. Wash the outside of the bottle thoroughly.

3. Fill the bottle with water.

4. Reseal the bottle with a cork.

5. Put the wine bottle in the refrigerator.

Now you have a smooth, heavy, cold rolling pin, just the thing for rolling out pastry dough. The bottle full of water will help keep the temperature inside your refrigerator stable too, saving a little bit of electricity.

Candelabra
When we were taking a tour of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, we noticed they were using wine bottles as candle holders everywhere. But, the Chateau wasn’t doing it by shoving a candle into the neck of the bottle like some neighborhood spaghetti restaurant might  (though that’s charming in its own way). Things are a bit more formal in Bordeaux. They used inserts to turn empty bottles into full-on candelabras.

When we got back from our trip, one of the first things we did was track down those inserts. You can find nice ones for $20 or less. Just do an online search for “wine bottle candelabra insert.”

Tip: Make sure you fill the wine bottle with water, sand, marbles or something else heavy. If you don’t weigh it down, the bottle will be top heavy which is dangerous when flaming candles are involved. Using a Pinot Noir or Syrah bottle with a wide base will give you a more stable candelabra too.

Water Pitcher
This one is pretty obvious, but charming nonetheless. Just clean a bottle thoroughly, remove the label if you like, and fill with fresh water. I think colorless bottles look the nicest in this application.

A bottle takes up less room on the dinner table than a pitcher, looks nice and gives you a bit of bistro ambience. In fact, we had a very nice dinner at Bistro M in Windsor recently and they were using wine bottles in exactly this way.

Wine Storage
People spend a lot of money trying to preserve left over wine. You can use a vacuum pump, or spray a bunch of nitrogen into the bottle, before you seal it. Or you can insert one of those funny looking “wine condoms” into the bottle. They lay on top of the surface of the wine, theoretically reducing exposure to oxygen.

I don’t do any of that these days. The vacuums can pull delicate aromatics out of the wine, the gas sprays aren’t cheap and those inserts are just weird. Instead, I pour leftover wine into small, clean wine bottles.

We keep a number of bottles on hand for this purpose. Half-bottles get the most use at our house. Once you’ve drunk about half of your regular-size bottle of wine, pour the rest into a half bottle and seal it with a cork or whatever cheap or fancy stopper you prefer. Then, pop the bottle into the fridge. It’ll be good for at least a couple of days — even longer with some wines.

There will be very little oxygen in the bottle and very little surface area exposed to it. The cold refrigerator will also help keep the wine fresh, but the half bottle won’t take up much room. Take red wine out of the fridge about one-hour before you want to drink it. Whites are generally served colder so they take even less time to warm up.

We also keep a couple of empty 750ml bottles around to deal with the remaining wine from magnums. And, if you have a Piccolo, a 0.1875ml Champagne bottle, you’ll never have to abuse your liver finishing a bottle because “there’s not enough to save.”

Philippe Dambrine of Chateau Cantemerle shows off his assortment of bottle sizes.

If the wine ends up sitting in the fridge a little too long to be perfect for drinking, you can always use it as cooking wine. And if cooking is to be the wine’s sole use, you can even blend different wines in one bottle. If you do this, try to stick to one color of wine per bottle though.

Vinegar and Oil
We make our own vinegar at home from leftover wine. It’s better tasting than most of the stuff we could buy in stores and it’s free from artificial additives. Empty wine bottles are a great way to store the vinegar. We don’t pasteurize our vinegar, so we seal it tightly and refrigerate it. Pasteurized vinegar you can just keep in the cupboard.

On a similar note, some of our favorite high-quality olive oil comes in large metal containers. Those aren’t practical to use on a daily basis. We pour it into 375ml wine bottles which are just the right size for easy pouring. They don’t take up much space in the cupboard or on the counter either. Olive oil doesn’t like sunlight, so green or brown bottles are the best ones to use.

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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 from photo by Wolfgang Sauber.

Saturday, I served as one of the judges for the 10th annual Pinot Noir Shootout finals put on by Affairs of the Vine. There were three panels of judges, each evaluating 32 wines over four flights. There were 96 wines in all. Most of the wines were from California, but not all. Theoretically, they could be from anywhere.

The Shootout is a well-organized, multi-stage evaluation of wines. A very large number of wines are submitted but, unlike most wine fair situations, the wines go through several judging stages over two or more months. This means judges don’t have to wade through hundreds of wines in just one or two days. Every wine that makes the finals has successfully passed at least two prior evaluations.

My personal experience in the finals suggests that this vetting was successful. From a qualitative standpoint, the wines fell into a narrow band in my view; roughlty 87 to 93 points. There was only one wine in the 32 that I rated significantly lower. That could well have been an issue with the particular bottle. (It definitely wasn’t corked though.)

One of the nice things about the Pinot Noir Shootout is that many of the wines involved are not regularly reviewed by mainstream wine magazines. Some are only available winery-direct, in person of through the online stores.

Below are the 12 wines I rated most highly from my group of 32, in alphabetical order by winery. The overall winners from the 96 wines will be published at Affairs of the Vines when all results have been tabulated. But, if you’re looking for a new Pinot Noir to try for a holiday meal, consider those I’ve listed here.

2007 Anderson Oaks Vineyard Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast, $30
Speaking of small wineries, Lee Anderson's primary business is real estate as you'll see from the website. But he also has a listing for this pretty wine with delicate flavors and a lightly creamy texture. Notes of rose, dark flowers, cocoa, cedar and red cherry. Charming, ready for immediate move in.

2009 Bargetto Reserve Pinot Noir Regan Estate Vineyards, Santa Cruz Mountains, $40
A very good wine with exotic aromas and flavors pine forest, mandarin orange and tea mixed with attractive red cherry, vanilla and marshmallow. Well-balanced, good concentration.

2007 Barney & Kel (KB Cellars) Pinot Noir Russian River, $28
Cherry, dill frond, citrus zest, berries and spice on aromas are followed by a richly-bodied and supple palate. Black cherry, dark spice and oak flavors. A pleasure to drink, seemingly impossible to find. If you're in Santa Rosa, ask around.

2009 Cubanismo Vineyards “Rumba” Pinot Noir Amity-Eola Hills, Willamette Valley, $21
Rose petal, tea and strawberry aromas. Medium body and well-balanced acidity, alcohol and intensity. Flavors of tea, orange and cranberry. Medium-plus length.

2008 Elkhorn Peak Pinot Noir Elkhorn Peak Estate Vineyard, Napa Valley, $34
The vineyard is in Jamieson Canyon, due north (across the highway and well up the hill from) the Chardonnay Golf Club. Spicy berries and slightly jammy red cherry with vanilla, oak and chocolate accents. A good drink with prominent tannins that will match up well with a juicy duck breast or beef filet.

2008 Estancia Estates Reserve Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands, $31
Pretty aromas of strawberry, vanilla, cherry and pot pourri spice. Satisfying palate weight and flavors of cherry and cedar.

2009 Ferrari-Carano Pinot Noir Sky High Ranch, Mendocino Ridge
Very long and juicy, with chewy tannins and a plethora of red fruit flavors. Pine, herb and dust add interest.

2008 Heart O’ The Mountain Pinot Noir 667 Clone, Single Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains, $52
A friendly, lightly sweet wine with maraschino cherry, vanilla, fennel and fig on the nose and raspberry jam with cocoa on the palate. A crowd-pleaser from this small, Santa Cruz Mountains winery.

2009 Hearthstone Vineyard and Winery Pinot Noir Hearthstone Estate Vineyard, Paso Robles, $38
Yes, Pinot Noir from Paso Robles. It's been grown in the Adelaida District since 1964. This one has a very dark Pinot nose: black cherry, cola and dusty earth. Grippy tannins lead to restrained flavors, mostly cherry, vanilla, cocoa and toasty oak. A good wine for seared pork belly.

2009 Sharp Cellars Pinot Noir Keenan’s Cove, Sonoma Coast, $48
Toasted oak, toasted marshmallow, black cherry and dried orange peel on the nose. Rich, almost creamy body, with concentrated flavors of cherry, raspberry, oak and caramel. Very long finish. A decadent Pinot.

2009 Ventana Pinot Noir Ventana Vineyard, Arroyo Seco, $29
Garnet tones made this wine look older than it is. The delicate aromatics also showed development: dried fruit, cola, driftwood and sarsparilla. Medium body with good acidity and balance. Light, jammy red fruit, vanilla, cocoa and dusty wood on the palate.

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 out our 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 2011 NorCal Wine. All rights reserved.

If you open as many wine bottles as I do, you may find yourself with two problems: sommelier elbow and a vast surplus of corks. You can make your elbow feel better by drinking some of the wine. But what do you do with all of those corks. Here are a few inspiring examples of what other forks with too many corks — and plenty of time on their hands — have done. Enjoy!

" Cork in the Road" by Steven Leslie; check out his site for other creations. He has other designs and sells his creations as well.


It took more than 300,000 wine corks to create this huge mosaic.


The shading the artist gets is impressive. Imagine sorting all of those corks!

The artist, Saimir Strati, not only uses different colors of cork, but different lengths to create depth. Don't try this at home if you've been drinking the wine! (via TheContaminated)

Wine cork "art" can be practical and doesn't have to be hard to make yourself. Craftynest has instructions for making your own wine cork bath mat.

On the other hand, the creations that are difficult to create and epic in size can be pretty amazing. This cork cow can be seen at the Charles Creek Vineyard tasting room on the square in Sonoma. Photo: Charles Creek Vineyard

After a hard day of building cork cows, you'll want to sit back and relax. So build yourself a chair too!

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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 out our comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

Garagiste Healdsburg, a new tasting room and micro-winery in downtown Healdsburg, is now open for your sipping pleasure. It pairs two small-production wine labels, Stark Wines and Cartograph in a spacious industrial-chic facility that I suspect will become a very popular hangout.

Garagiste Healdsburg opened for tasting on July 30, 2011.

Garagiste is a French term, coined in Bordeaux, that referred to a group of micro-wineries that began cropping up in the 1990‘s. Some of them were literally located in the owners’ garages. True to the name, Garagiste Healdsburg is more than a tasting room. It is a licensed micro-winery — in a building that was an auto dealer's garage some 80 years ago. Wine will be made right behind the tasting bar in a room visible through a large glass window. Garagiste Healdsburg offers tasting pours of all their wines for $5 but sells them by the glass or bottle too. There is plenty of room at the tasting bar, but you can also grab a comfortable seat inside or relax on the front patio.

Christian Stark tends the tasting bar during the pre-opening party for friends and family.

The Stark Wines are made by Christian Stark. Over the past ten years, in addition to making his own wine, he has worked under and/or been mentored by a number local winemakers including David Georges, then of Davis Bynum. A graduate of the California Culinary Academy, Christian seeks to make full-bodied, fruit-forward wines that also work at the dinner table. Stark Wines’ current releases are the 2009 Stark Viognier Damiano Vineyard Sierra Foothills, 2009 Stark Chardonnay Windsor Oaks Vineyard Russian River Valley and the 2006 Stark Syrah Teldeschi & Unti Vineyards Dry Creek Valley.

Christian & Jen Stark of Stark Wine at Garagiste Healdsburg moments before the Grand Opening.

Alan Baker and Serena Lourie met at Crushpad in San Francisco where Alan went to work in 2005. After collaborating closely together on a number of wines, Alan and Serena's mutual attractions to wine and each other led them to Healdsburg and the creation of Cartograph in 2009. Alan, the winemaker, strives for balanced Pinot Noir that emphasizes character and complexity and over concentration and intensity. He favors early harvests to preserve signature vineyard characteristics in the fruit and ensure food-friendliness. In addition to vineyard-designate Pinot Noir from Split Rock and Two Pisces, both in the Sonoma Coast AVA, Cartograph offers one white wine. It is the 2009 Cartograph Floodgate Vineyard Gewurtztraminer Russian River Valley, a dry, unoaked wine modeled after the Gewurtztraminers of Alsace.

Cartograph's Serena Lourie & Alan Baker making guests feel welcome at Garagiste Healdsburg.

I like the feel of Garagiste Healdsburg. It is sleek and open, yet friendly. Alan Baker constructed many of the decorative elements himself using parts from an old crusher/destemmer. They visually tie the urban-industrial space together with the craft of winemaking, creating a unique and memorable personality.

A view into the winery/ barrel room at Garagiste Healdsburg.

Garagiste Healdsburg offers a spacious tasting area.

Alan Baker made many of the decorative elements, including this chandelier, from a crusher/destemmer.

You can watch the people strolling by on Healdsburg Ave. while enjoying wine on the patio.

Garagiste Healdsburg is located at 439 Healdsburg Avenue, just two blocks north of the square. It is open Thursday through Monday, 11am to 6pm, and by appointment on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tasting flights are $5. Wines by the glass are $7 for white and $10 for red. Garagiste is also available for private events.

Garagiste Healdsburg is the micro winery and tasting room for Cartograph and Stark Wine.

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 out our 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. All photos by Fred Swan. Copyright 2011 NorCal Wine. All rights reserved.