Wine (RSS)

Posts about wines. Mostly it will be reviews of recently consumed wine.

*I* fixed an appliance!

OK... we have a U-line WC15 wine cooler (under counter model).  It stopped cooling.  So, we did the natural thing... bought a replacement (different product, same function).

Then, after a little prodding from my father during his visit, I decided to check it out.
The symptoms were simple:  The light worked... the rest of it never turned on.

So, my dad said that it's one of 2 things, either the relay switch that turns on the compressor is bad... or the temperature control is.

After using my multimeter and using a wire to jumper over the both of these, I determined that the temperature control was the culprit.  I found a cool site called RepairClinic.com that made it really easy to find a new part.  For about $65 I got a new one.  I installed it yesterday and everything's working fine now.  Pretty cool.

Luckily, I have a friend who is interested in buying the replacement I bought.  Since we gave it a two week test run, he knows it works well :)

Lesson learned:  I know enough about electricity and things to test my electrical things when they go on the fritz...
posted by Tom with 0 Comments

Wine Nose

A while ago, I bought Le Nez du Vin in order to sharpen my (and my wife's) wine scent / flavor idenfitication skills.  This thing is pretty cool.  It contains all these little vials of fluids which are, basically, the essence of smells that you will run into when drinking wines.  I bought the Master Kit, which contains Red & White scents and the Faults in order to detect bad things like cork and sulphur.  It is a really neat concept.

Unfortunately, we have not put it to good use yet.  So, as a new resolution, I am going to attempt to use it at any time we are tasting a new wine to help identify smells that I can't recognize.

I will post any new observations and see how this goes while I post about wines, in general. 

Here's hoping it helps.
posted by Tom with 45 Comments