Monday, September 17, 2007

Wine


We have always been big wine drinkers. I do not have a very sophisticated palate (I am not the person to talk to about the age of a grape or the subtle currant or cherry flavor that exists in a wine) but I have always enjoyed trying new wines and drinking a fair amount of it. In San Francisco we kept our wine in a bar that was located in our kitchen (much to the chagrin of my father who groaned that the temperature was too high in a kitchen and it should be moved to the basement). Philippines has created a whole different situation for wine.

Here it is hot. Not just a little warm but HOT. We have been keeping our red wine.....in the fridge. When we drink wine, it is poured out cold from the fridge. It got to the point that we had too much wine to fit in the fridge(my father who has connections at wineries sent us home with a case of fantastic wines) and keeping it on a shelf in a hot room seemed like a horrible thing to do to a nice bottle. We broke down and today bought a wine cooler. I am in love. It holds 34 bottles, has the temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit (I am bad with conversions), and can be locked. All in all my perfect wine fridge. We were going to wait until we moved to the new house but decided to get it now. We had thought about buying one in the states but it always seemed like a frivolous luxury for our $7 bottle of wine from Trader Joes. Here, while still a luxury, it has definitely moved into a slightly more necessary purchase.

Again, since my palate sucks, I have no qualms about keeping white and sparkling wines in the fridge.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I've been looking to buy a wine fridge in Manila - I live in Makati. Can you post info on where you found one?

Thanks,
Itamar

kikas_head said...

We bought ours at the Fujidenzo store on E. Rodriguez near Banawe. We paid P13,000 for ours with metal shelves (I think the marked price was P13,500). The ones with wooden shelves cost more. I have also seen the one we have at S&R.

http://www.fujidenzo.com/products/prod_bev_wine.html

There is also a GE Brand one at the GE store in Megamall and it was about P25K.

We love this one and have had no problems with it at all.

Anonymous said...

Thanks!

DW said...

I have 2 full-sized wine refs at home, far too many I must admit. Worse, it really adds to the electricity bill. I have decided to dedicate a small room, install a small 1-ton air con, set the thermostat at 24C, get some cheap racks and boxes and start a walk-in cellar for 500 bottles. I was told that this saves me a ton of money in the long run in electricity bill.

DW