In 1972, President Pompidou of France gifted Queen Elizabeth II a wine cooler in the shape of a giant grasshopper that, when you rotated its wings, turned into a drinks table. I haven’t seen it in the background of any royal family Christmas photos since. And I know how they feel: ever since I started working in wine, I’ve accrued a trove of so-called “gadgets”. A wine aerator. Several preservation systems. An amount of corkscrews that feels almost illegal to own. You can find all these things, and many others besides, in a dusty drawer in my house.
The gift of a drinks gadget is very well-meaning, I suppose, the assumption being that I drink enough wine on a daily basis that what I really need is a piece of tech to make my consumption of it easier, sexier and slightly more expensive.
