Best Wine Improver of All Time

There are countless gadgets, widgets, "scientifically proven instruments", howdoyouwatchyoucallits and other stuff that can supposedly improve a wine that might otherwise need improving.  I am all for the advancement of science and technology but some "advances" just seem silly.  Like spending $25 on a piece of metal that when dipped in your $6 bottle of Cabernet makes it taste like a $20 Cabernet.  

My first thought is to buy a $15 dollar bottle and save your self the silliness of dipping a piece of metal in your wine.

Plus, I can suggest something that will improve the quality of any wine you purchase. Guaranteed.  Any wine, from a $5.99 1.5L bottle of something with a neon frog on it, to a 1947 Cheval Blanc (Arguably the greatest wine ever made. So I hear.) will almost instantly improve once this thing is added.  You don't have to dip this thing in the wine, strain your wine through it, wave it around the bottle in figure eights or any such other ritual hazing of your wine.  I'm not even selling it or saying you can only get this from a special place where you have to know a secret signal.  No, what I offer is something you hopefully do every day.  Laughter is the most powerful and secret wine improver in the world.

Laughter is what makes any wine seem more "smooth," "lush," or "soft."  Laughter gives wine all those special things that we look for in a good bottle, enjoyment, appreciation and relaxation. So save your money and wine gadgets for a re-gift next year.  Invite a few friends out for a glass of wine and laugh out loud with your head back and knee firmly slapped.  Best glass of wine you will have had in a long time.

Optimism is Delicious

Why would anyone try something new unless they were optimistic that they would like it?  There are a number of answers to this question, (My boss does it.  "They" say it is good for you. I just watched an hour and a half commercial on why this rotisserie thing is awesome.).  I still think unabashed optimism is what propels most us to try something new or different.  

I have always found Tuesdays to be the best days to try something new.  Tuesday is the day of the week that is often lost in the daily morass of week to week life.  Monday is Monday and cases of the "MOONdays" abound.  Wednesday is "hump day."  Thursday is almost Friday and Friday even has its own acronym.  Then it's the weekend!   Tuesday is the day with no more meaning attached to it than it is the day between MOONdays and hump days.  

So use your Tuesday to try something new and different with a bright eyed optomisitc outlook that this the new thing will be really great once you have tried it.  There are no limits to to "New Stuff Tuesdays."  You can try a new way to get to work or a new sandwich at lunch.  If you tie your left shoe before your right usually, try it the other way.  The only key is to approach a new task with wide eyed optimisim that whatever new thing you are trying, it is going to be totally awesome.  You may get burned a few times like when you try a lunch of iceberg lettuce and ketchup, but more often than not your optimism will be rewarded.

Salsify is a great New Thing Tuesday item to try.  Salsify is a member of the Goatsbeard genus of plants.  You should try alone on that fact.  It is a long tuber that has a sweat earthy flavor with a little tang of an oyster.  It is delicious in a puree, especially with fish.  Even more so with a perfectly cooked piece of Artic Char.  You could try the Salsify with the Artic Char and really send Tuesday over the moon.

Try something new.  Start a movement.  

Peach Pit

Usually, when a wine maker writes something on the back of their wine it ends up being foolish, condescending and just plane "crap."  Most of these wine bottle blurbs are written through careful marketing studies and focus groups.  

Then, then you read something on the back of wine bottle like,

"Sometimes fruit is simply found on the table that way. Other times it is purposefully arranged. Peaches are half cut open; their white insides clutching their pitted stones. Next to them a scrolling lemon peel, and behind them spotted pears in a perfect "Still Life". On one hand, there is the desire to feel the flesh of the fruit on the tooth; on the other, the sense of how much better it may be tomorrow."

This delicious little vin-yet is on the back of a bottle of Dominio IV Viognier, "Still Life."  It may not tell you the Ph of the wine or the Brix at harvest or even which way the slope faces where the grapes were grown.  What it does artfully do is give you a greater sense of the person who made the wine and an subtle allusion to the flavors in the wine.  You can almost see what the wine might taste like.  If nothing else, this wine bottle paragraph is a pleasant surprise, like a good fortune cookie. So sit back and enjoy both the prose and wine making from the fine folks at Dominio IV.  Simply delicious.