You Otto Grock Grotto
Written: Jan 31 '00 (Updated Jan 31 '00)
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Pros: Real Techy And Yuppie-Like
Cons: Doesn't Hold Enough Bottles!
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| dave_fietz's Full Review: Wine Grotto 6MOD |
In the area of things winey, only the plethora of advice on what constitutes a good wine exceeds advice on how to store yours. The most frequently depicted method involves a large, dark cavern (presumably beneath a large castle) filled with a toney ambience and racks constructed from exotic woods and medieval brass hardware, with the latest electronic temperature tracking, the better to preserve whut's in them bottles. Unfortunately, this method exceeds the means of the man in the street by several orders of magnitude. What follows are more economical ways of storing your wine until you consume it.
The easiest storage solution concerns wine so cheap (but horrible) that where you store it means absolutely nothing. This often includes a wine received as a gift, after which you might store it out on the back steps in hopes that some wandering vagrant might solve your dilemma, or on the curb next to your weekly garbage offerings, as a sop to the Men At Work who transport society's bilgewaste to the nearest landfill (this assumes they will drink and not dump it, thereby increasing the toxicity of their destination).
The next easiest solution is to purchase wine that cannot possibly benefit from storage before you drink it, thereby making its short-lived time in your refrigerator or picnic cooler an OK thing. There are many such wines: anything with Gallo in the name qualifies, as an example. An added bennie is that you can drink these wines out of a paper cup, or perhaps more properly from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, without feeling like you are doing the two-step on Sacred Ground. Another is that you can drink wines like this any time, without feeling like you have to wait for a "special occasion", like the 7th litter of kittens your cat delivers, or winning $3 playing Powerball.
One step up in complexity are wines that don't improve over time but don't degrade either, properly stored. These keep nicely in a closed cardboard box in the basement, elevated enough to avoid the odd sewer backup. One benefit to using this method is that one often forgets that you stored wine this way (after piling other boxes around it), and rediscovering it 10 years hence (before your next move) becomes an "occasion" warranting its consumption in and of itself. Another is that the likelihood of pilferage of your wine by burglars is greatly reduced over more open methods of storage (what right-thinking crook would take the time to go through all those old storage boxes?).
For the remainder of you who insist on buying "good stuff" and then feel obligated to store it in the fashion to which it has become accustomed, you’re somewhat on your own as far as I am concerned. If you keep the portcullis down and the moat full, you can probably repel the Unwashed Heathen lusting after your pricey bubbly. This particular product looks like a good bet for you. Its symmetric solidity inspires a certain joie de vivre, the better to impress friends and relatives when you take them downstairs for The Tour. Its crowning feature: digital temperature, which as all wine buffs know is far superior to the old-fashioned analog thermometer. Good luck with it.
Recommended:
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Amount Paid (US$): If You Have To Ask...
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dave_fietz
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Member: Dave Fietz
Reviews written: 176
Trusted by: 41 members
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