Great, cheap drip catcher

There are any number of wine gadgets available these days, solving all sorts of real or imagined wine woes. If you are like us, you have yet to master the quick wrist twist at the end of your pour to catch wine drips before they dribble down the neck of the bottle and onto your linens. There are several ways to solve this problem:

• Learn the wrist twist. Try to give the bottle a quick twist as you lift upward after pouring. This is effective if you can do it; dangerous for both the glass and your tablecloth if you can’t. We can’t.



• Keep a napkin handy to wipe the neck after each pour. Effective but not necessarily elegant.



• Tie a napkin or towel around the neck. Again, effective but not attractive.



• Buy a drip catcher.
  
  

There are several varieties of drip catchers. For years, we used one that was simply a silver plastic collar with thick felt inside. Just slip the collar over the neck of the bottle and the felt catches the drips. It looks nice enough and it works great – as long as the collar fits over the neck. Bottle necks vary so much, however, about one-third of the time we found our collar was too small and rendered useless.

Solving this problem, we recently spotted a collar that came in two magnetized pieces. Simply pull the two halves apart and place around any sized bottle neck. The magnets hold the collar in place. While nice in theory, we elected not to buy one of these for a few reasons. First, it was expensive, along the lines of $30. Second, it was heavy. While making it feel substantial and perhaps worth $30, we wondered what impact a pound of metal on the neck of a wine bottle would have on our ability to pour. Undoubtedly, the bottle would feel top heavy and likely awkward.

You Two Wine Nuts have a much cheaper, lighter method. We use tiny hair scrunchies to catch our wine drips. We wish we could take credit for the ingenuity of this solution. Instead, it was passed along to us by a very creative relative. For just $1.50 at Wal-Mart, you can buy a 42-pack of elastic fabric bands in a variety of colors. They slip right over neck of any sized wine bottle and sit quietly on the neck absorbing drips. They are easily rinsed or tossed out guilt-free after repeated use. NOTE: Be sure you do not get the sparkly versions. The extra glitter makes the bands less absorbent.

A good California-light Chardonnay

As mentioned in previous posts, your Two Wine Nuts are not big fans of typical California Chardonnays. For many years, we thought that all Chardonnays were thick, heavy, oaky, and buttery; indeed, that's how most California-style Chardonnays turn out. But there are actually some Chards out there that are...fruity! Most of the time, they are French wines, but more and more producers are discovering there is a growing American market for a lighter-touch Chardonnay. Having had some very positive experiences with other offerings from Oyster Bay Wines, we picked up a bottle of 2005 Oyster Bay Chardonnay recently and gave it a try a few nights ago with friends.

Oyster Bay Wines come from the Marlborough area of New Zealand's south island. Our favorite Sauvignon Blancs come from New Zealand, so we were eager to see what they would do with a Chardonnay.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Oyster Bay Chardonnay was not as fruity as we were hoping. It actually smelled very much like a typical Chardonnay -- lots of oak and butter and a hint of vanilla bean. Taste-wise, it is best described as a much tamer version of a California Chardonnay. There was butter, there was oak, and it had a creamy mouthfeel. But it was not nearly as heavy and in-your-face as typical California versions. This was a very good thing. While it didn't have the fruitiness we were hoping for, a friend who was tasting with us said, "I don't really care for Chardonnays and I could drink quite a bit of this!" So if you like California-style Chardonnays in concept but are turned off by how heavy they are, give this New Zealand one a try.

We bought the Oyster Bay Chardonnay at BevMo for $12.99, which is pretty reasonable but we'd be more excited to find it on sale for closer to $10. We will likely buy a couple more bottles the next time we see it, but we are still on the lookout for a fruitier, less oaky Chardonnay.