The Friday Fermentable addendum

Just clearing out the MSM that finds its way into Chez Pharmboy and was totally taken by a brief gadget alert on wine stuff written by Rebecca Hall in the Enterprise section of the 2 October issue of Newsweek:

Toying With Wine
by Rebecca Hall

If you can't sate your inner oenophile with stylish wine-glasses, there are plenty of cool new accessories on the market.

The Wine Sceptre (who wouldn't want to own a sceptre?) is a metal wand you freeze to keep a prechilled wine bottle at optimal temperature. It's inserted like a stirrer and hollowed out for pouring, and comes with a stopper--in gold, silver or Swarovski crystal ($187-$282; jfkwinesceptre.com).

Want to develop a nose for bouquet? Try a Le Nez du Vin kit, designed to help amateurs identify subtle aromas found in wine by supplying bottles of scents like honey and butter ($104-$395; nezduvin.co.uk).

To find out how a 2006 Merlot will age, check out the Clef du Vin. It uses a small piece of copper alloy to oxidize a glass of wine and mimic what it will taste like down the road. That way, you'll know whether to shelve it or serve it to friends ($123; aroundwine.co.uk).

Pricey stuff, indeed, and I'd love to have my oenophile friends comment on how the copper Clef du Vin will "age" a wine. I am familiar with dropping pennies in wine that has been overdosed with sulfites, but am unfamiliar with the aging business. If I had $123 to throw around, I'd go guy a properly-aged bottle of first-growth Bordeaux or vintage port.

But what I'd really love to mess with, especially as a scientist, are the aroma kits from http://nezduvin.co.uk/. Again, very steep prices but if PharmMom and PharmSis are reading, "can you say Christmas gift?" I'd love to learn more about the subtle aromas of even the cheap wines I drink so that I can hold forth more intelligently on why I find so many $12 wines kicking the butts of snooty, $80 bottles.

I know, I know... all those chemicals in the Nez du Vin kits are probably natural products that I can find in the chemistry labs of my colleagues, but I don't have the guts to bring samples home and actually taste them!