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Clef du Vin Pocket Wine Tasting Tool (Brushed Steel

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Brand: The Wine Enthusiast
Category: Kitchen

Buy New: $99.95

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

11 reviews
Sales Rank: 73222

EAN: 4897010481013
ASIN: B0002VRRXU

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 6-10 of 11

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I'll save you $99.94... December 10, 2006
17 out of 19 found this review helpful

I tried this product for the first time the other night on an assortment of good quality, 8-11yr old red wines from various countries. I was very very sceptical, but after a 3s dip the slightly tannic wine I was drinking was astonishingly transformed into a softer, less tannic wine. Others noticed a similar effect, although not everyone felt the change was positive, one dissenter feeling the wine had lost some of its flavor. Being forever the scientist, I then divided some fresh wine into 2 glasses, "aged" one and left the other alone. Consistently, this product did affect the wine. It was not always for the better, however, because some of the bottles we'd opened were already perfectly aged, and had been decanted for over an hour, so for some bottles I felt the effect was detrimental. I also tried leaving the product in the wine for 30s, supposedly aging the 1995 Merlot to 1965. It was ruined, not aged. Wondering why this obvious and repeatable change in the wine occurred, I hypothesized that perhaps the acidity of the wine was causing a reaction with the copper alloy, thus releasing copper and perhaps other unknown-to-me ions. So rather than actually changing the structure of the wine, it was just adding something discernible to it, hence the bad effects after a long dunking. Part of my reasoning for this was the nature of the product's instructions: that a 1s dunk into 100ml equaled 1 year of aging (something like that). I saw this as "surface area of the reactive alloy over a period of time in a certain volume of wine", which seemed to be far too short a period of time and far too small a surface area in such a large volume to actually cause a change in the structure of the wine, but was presumably enough time to add some trace ions. So I tested this hypothesis by scrubbing clean and drying a shiny copper penny, and using that in a similar fashion to the product. The results were promising, the penny having a very similar effect on the wine. So if you'd like to preview this product, I suggest you start with a nice clean penny and see whether you like the effect. It'll save you $99.94, but it won't be as classy.

5 out of 5 stars

This is a wonderful tool to own November 14, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

My husband has one of these little jewels and we just love it. We recently took it with us on a trip to Napa and we used it to its fullest. We were able to choose wines for our collection with a higher degree of confidence. We left it with a winemaker who really like it (we were rewarded with bottles form his private library) I am getting another for my husband. As stated in the other review, this will not make a bad or so so bottle of wine better, but it will give you a chance to peek into the future of your collection. It will soften tannins and make a young Zin or Cab more silky and drinkable right now. Now I don't think that this tool will completely duplicate the aging process, but it will give you a peek into the future. Enjoy!

3 out of 5 stars

Below my expectation July 29, 2006
2 out of 8 found this review helpful

I'm not a wine expert but for me the product is below my expectation. Tested on several glasses of wine and the end result is not consistent.

1 out of 5 stars

There's a sucker born every minute... May 19, 2006
4 out of 12 found this review helpful

I purchased this "tool" and it did nothing but ruin the taste of the wine. I should have known that it was too good to be true. And the worse part is that I wasted $100 bucks on it.

Anyone who believes that a hunk of metal can "artificially age" your wine, I've got some prime oceanfront property for sale in Arizona.

5 out of 5 stars

I'm hard to convince! November 26, 2005
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

Just got the Clef du Vin and have tried it on many wines, white and red and on many wine drinkers, from novice to experienced. Everyone noticed the difference that the Clef du Vin made.

It noticably alters the wine bringing out more softness and complexity (if the wine is good). The longer you dip it the greater the change. As the ads say, it doesn't fix bad wine, but it gives you an idea of where the wine will be going.

This is a great tool that helps you figure out why that $7 bottle of merlot from Roumania (or anywhere else) isn't equivalent to that $30 bottle of Napa merlot. It exposes the weaknesses and strengths of any bottle of wine.

This thing convinced me.

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