Wine of the Month Club | Champagne and Wine Gadgets….KUSI San Diego

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Male:                    Time to start thinking about ringing in the New Year.

Female:                Already!  Up next, we got some tips on how you can make an inexpensive wine taste like a million bucks.

Male:                    Wow!  We have one of those, right?

Female:                We do!

Male:                    Well, with New Year’s Eve just days away, now’s the time to find that perfect wine to toast in the New Year.

Female:                That’s right.  [Inaudible 0:24] Alexis DelChiaro spoke with the president of the original Wine Club of the Month, gives us a few suggestions.

Male:                    Listen in.

Female:                Yeah.

Alexis:                   Welcome back!  And if you’re looking for some great ideas for host gifts or ways to toast the New Year, then we’ve got something for all you wine lovers.  Paul Kalemkiarian, the president of the original Wine of the Month Club is here to show us some great ideas for all the winos in our lives.  Good morning, Paul.

Paul:                      Good morning!  It’s great to be here.  It was great job with my name.  It’s so long, 12 letters, you did it.

Alexis:                   I’m DelChiaro so I feel your pain.

Paul:                      Right.  Yeah, that’s right.

Alexis:                   So wine is actually a great gift to give someone if you know them well or if you don’t really know them that well, right?

Paul:                      It’s a great gift because it just means life, and it means fun, and it means energy so everybody that gets a bottle of wine or champagne for the holidays.

Alexis:                   So what kind of fun stuff do you have to show us today?

Paul:                      We’ve got some really cool stuff today.  I brought some gadgets that are becoming quite popular in the wine business and they’re used to sort of advance the age.  One of the things that we used to do in the old days, we would decant the wine and we would separate the sediment from the wines so we have nice clear wine but now we have devices to do that automatically.  And one of them is Vinturi which is sort of a cone shaped carbureted device.

Alexis:                   So does that go on top of the bottle?

Paul:                      Well let me show you how to do it.  You hold it up there over the glass.

Alexis:                   Okay.

Paul:                      Just right over there.

Alexis:                   Over here?

Paul:                      And then we’re going to pour some wine, hoping we don’t spill it all over you.

Alexis:                   It’s okay.

Paul:                      And if you hear it…

Alexis:                   Oh, yeah.

Paul:                      It’s slurping.  And what that’s doing is aerating the wine so it allows us to drink it sooner.

Alexis:                   So it decants right before you drink it.

Paul:                      Exactly.

Alexis:                   Oh that’s cool!

Paul:                      It decants before you drink it so the Vinturi is a very popular item, it actually became famous around town.  Now the one I use in my office all the time to change the wine is the Bevwesser.

Alexis:                   I’ve never seen that.

Paul:                      Unfortunately, it’s not very attractive.

Alexis:                   What is that?

Paul:                      It’s magnetic.  It’s got a little aeration device.  And what you do is you stick it at the end of the bottle, and then you pour it into the glass from there.

Alexis:                   Okay.

Paul:                      And it actually does a lot.  It changes the wine quite a bit.  And that’s why I use it in my office because it allows you to…

Alexis:                   What’s that?

Paul:                      That’s also an aerational.

Alexis:                   Okay, I see.

Paul:                      What’s kind of cool is if you take this, put it against the bells down there…

Alexis:                   Next to the bell.  Oh!  Whoa!

Paul:                      Hey!  Okay.

Alexis:                   Okay, so it’s basically like a big magnet.

Paul:                      That’s what it is.  It changes it.

Alexis:                   Can I ask you about this OMG wine?

Paul:                      Well I heard you say on set OMG a few times.

Alexis:                   Well I got to keep it real.

Paul:                      Exactly!  There’s a whole text speak brand of wines that we carry.  We have OMG, Too Good to be True, and all kinds of things.

Alexis:                   Oh, I love it!  This one’s fun too.  Okay, what’s this gadget down here?

Paul:                      Now this one, this is for the 60s throwback guys.

Alexis:                   Oh no.

Paul:                      I don’t know if you’d smoke this.

Alexis:                   Yeah, oh no.

Paul:                      Or you pour wine.  I won’t demonstrate it but what it does is it goes at the end of the bottle like this.

Alexis:                   Okay.

Paul:                      And then you pour it into a bowl first.

Alexis:                   Okay.

Paul:                      And you pour it into your glass.

Alexis:                   So basically, we’ve got another decanter.

Paul:                      It’s a decanter but it’s like a single glass decanter.

Alexis:                   Okay.

Paul:                      Now this one again, so this is the gumball machine, I call it.

Alexis:                   Oh, yeah.

Paul:                      You put this here in your decanter, you pour the wine through this, it spirals it down.

Alexis:                   Let’s see.

Paul:                      You want to try it?

Alexis:                   Yeah.

Paul:                      Okay, here we go.

Alexis:                   I mean this is just kind of to wow your guests.

Paul:                      Yeah, but this here, I don’t think this does anything extra.

Alexis:                   But it’s really cool looking.

Paul:                      It’s kind of fun, ain’t it?  And if you get the plastic gumball, you get a free gumball next time.  It’s really great.

Alexis:                   What’s this guy?  Is this for..?

Paul:                      This is kind [inaudible 3:27].  I used to get in trouble for doing this as a kid but…

Alexis:                   Yeah.

Paul:                      Go ahead.  Put it in the, stick it in the glass.

Alexis:                   This way?  Okay.

Paul:                      And then squeeze the bowl.

Alexis:                   Oh, we’re doing one of these things.  What is that?

Paul:                      Okay.  See all these little bubbles that come out, it’s aerating the wine but isn’t that kind of strange?

Alexis:                   It’s kind of strange but actually, it’s kind of cool.  And actually, you can really smell the wine when you do that.

Paul:                      It does open it up quite a bit.

Alexis:                   It’s pretty.  Okay, so I know that you’ve brought some champagne for us because couldn’t go through the holidays without the champagne, huh?

Paul:                      No.  This is called Placere from [inaudible 3:56].  It’s a wonder champagne, traditional blend of Pinot Noir chardonnay.  And this is French made bottle of champagne.  You’re a pro at this right?

Alexis:                   Yeah.  Here we go.  Watch this.  Here we go.

Paul:                      Yes!

Alexis:                   Whoa!  Alright.

Paul:                      Nicely done.

Alexis:                   Toasting to a beautiful New Year.  And Paul, thank you so much for joining us today.

Paul:                      It’s my pleasure.

Alexis:                   Where can we find out more info about you?

Paul:                      Well if you go to Wineofthemonthclub.com, and if you use KUSI as a promotion code, you get 15% out of all items and the champagne we saw today.

Alexis:                   Cheers to you!

Paul:                      Cheers to you!

Alexis:                   Happy New Year!

Female:                I heard she almost [inaudible 4:25]

Male:                    We want to wish our cameraman well who’s in the hospital today.

Female:                Black and blue.

Male:                    No, no, not really.  I love the guy.

Female:                Great tips.

Male:                    I mean how many people get to use that device in their office?

Female:                I know!

Male:                    He says, “I use this in my office.”

Female:                I giggled at first and then remember what he does for a living.  Not many people can say that.  I use this at work.

Male:                    I use this at work.

Female:                Yeah.