Wine accessories compliment your wine experience just as fine jewelry compliments a designer outfit just as fine leather seats compliments a luxury car and the list goes on. It’s not a necessarily but it does make your wine experience more pleasurable. What are wine accessories you may ask, well… wine accessories range from your basic corkscrew to Tiffany’s crystal decanters. Here is a list of just some of the many wine accessories out there:

• Wine Coasters & Table Mats
Coasters & Table Mats are nice items to have while entertaining guests. Coasters are generally made from wood or cardboard designed to protect your table top from water rings that will form during condensation process, water rings will seep into the wood of your table top and leave a mark on the paint work. You can find many wonderful coaster designs that’ll fit any theme and they don’t cost very much to have your own collection of coasters. Table Mats also function the same way as coasters except that they are much bigger in size and designed to fit a normal sized dining plate. Table Mats adds a touch of elegance to your dining experience as well as protects your dining table from any scratches and marks left by spilled food.

• Hip Flasks & Funnels
Hip Flasks are most commonly used by elder gentlemen who wish to carry their whiskey or port in small quantities during outdoor activities, these days we use hip flasks to carry almost any type of drinks from water to our favorite wine. Hips Flasks are also referred as vacuum flask which is a type of bottle minimizes the heat transfer from the inside to the outside, it keeps warm drinks warm and cold drinks cool. Funnels are used to safely pour the liquid into the flasks without risk of spilling; this is an important tool when you are pouring your favorite wine or liquor into the flask. The combination of a hip flask and a funnel makes great gifts for anyone who loves the outdoors.

• Wine Pouring Baskets
A wine pouring basket is also a great presentation accessory for your favorite bottle of wine. You mostly find these baskets used in fine Italian restaurants, they’re used to efficiently pour wine without fear of slippage. The basket also functions as a tool for decanting, whereby the bottle is placed in a semi horizontal position so that the pouring motion will not disturb the position of any left over sediments sitting at the bottom of the bottle.

• Corkscrews & other openers
Corkscrews are a must when we are talking about wine and other alcoholic beverages that don’t have a twist-off lid. Corkscrews are an essential in every kitchen, it is as important as a spoon. A corkscrew is used for drawing corks from bottles. A corkscrew comprised of a metal helix attached to a handle. A corkscrews are necessary due to the shape and texture of a cork which is small and smooth and are difficult to remove because the material of a cork are somewhat spongy and expands, this is why they are used efficiently in wine and champagne bottles to keep preserve the state of the drink.

Presently corkscrews comes in many variation for easy handling, most common and easiest to use are those that comes with a lever that further increases the force that is applied to removing the cork.

• Wine Pourers, Drip Rings & Stoppers
Bottle pourers, drip rings and stoppers are great bar accessories during a party. Bottle pourers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, most popular are the ones made out of stainless steel. Wine Pourer ensures the correct oxidation of the wine, and at the same time it prevents the bottle from dripping. A drip ring is attached below the mouth of the bottle to prevent spills after pouring. Stoppers are increasingly gaining popularity this is because it allows you to maintain the flavour in a bottle of wine for a few days after opening. It fits many different sizes of bottle neck.

• Wine Savers
A wine saver is a re-sealing system for keeping opened bottles of wine in good condition for days. Most wine savers consist of a rubber stopper containing a one-way valve and an extraction pump to create a partial vacuum within the bottle, so reducing oxidation.

You’re probably asking do you really need all this to appreciate wine, the answer is no, the exquisite taste of a great wine itself is often times as close as you can get to paradise. So then why do we have all these again you may ask, these accessories takes your appreciation of wine a step further, lets say you just discovered this amazing bottle of wine and you wish to save it to share with someone special, it’s literally impossible to put the cork back in and risk losing it’s excellent taste so this is when a stopper comes to the rescue. Some of us love presentation, and what better way to present your favorite wine than from a crystal decanter, in fact it is recommended to pour wine into a decanter for decantation purposes. This is so that sediments from the wine bottle such as winestone do not flow into your glass. If a decanter is somewhat over the top for your taste, then the decanting cradles will do the job just fine.

Article from www.wine-blog.net.