Wine Enhancer....?

Have you guys heard about this yet?


Gotta be a gimmick of some sort.....the Chia Pet of wine:



(Link to scam product removed by editing)

Have you guys heard about this yet?


Gotta be a gimmick of some sort.....the Chia Pet of wine:

Not only have I heard of it, but I've engaged in an exchange of nasty emails with its creator after publicly ridiculing the original Wine Enhancer. Mr. Catania, if you're reading this, I stand by my previous comments.

Mark Lipton

Tim,
A while ago we had a thread about posting URLs. When you post a very long URL, such as in this post, it all remains in one line, thus making the window of your thread stretch out and a bottom scroll bar appear. To avoid this, do the following:
1. Enter (or paste) the URL.
2. Highlight the URL and click on the URL button.
NOTE: For demonstration, I'm substituting ( and ) for [ and ] .
Your message will show the URL with (url) before and (/url) after.
(url)www.mylink.com(/url)
3. Edit the URL by substituting the first ) with =
4. Place a ) just before the (/url).
5. Between the ) and the ( enter text to rename your link.
For instance: (url=www.mylink.com)My Special Link(/url)
6. You can then click on Preview or Post and your link will be displayed as:
My Special Link

From the web site:

• This small copper wine enhancer brightens and smoothes the taste of your reds and whites, and mellows your coffees, water, beers, sakes, fine cognacs and single malt scotches
• Makes young wines ready to drink in minutes without years of aging; releases fruit in both the bouquet and the taste
• Delivers longer finish and lessens burn, astringency and chalky feeling on the tongue; helps alleviate red wine headaches
• Releases the flavor and complexities of the wine; smoothes the burn in all spirits


Tim-

I don't follow...what about this seems gimmicky to you?

Matt

ps Damn, why isn't there an emoticon for friendly sarcasm?

By the way, I bet at least six people on this board will get this for Christmas.

[Robin Garr]

Tim,
A while ago we had a thread about posting URLs. When you post a very long URL, such as in this post, it all remains in one line, thus making the window of your thread stretch out and a bottom scroll bar appear. To avoid this, do the following:

Thanks, Howie. I really hope everyone will read that. If you're thinking about posting a really long URL that will stretch the window and mess up the forum display, please embed it; and if you don't remember how to do that, please ask.

Anyway, I went into Tim's post with the idea of editing his window-breaking act of linkage, but when I realized it was for the Catania "crystal," I decided to simply delete the link instead. There's no point in either making it easy for folks to be separated from their money or to help boost the "Enhancer's" google stature with a link.

Folks may recall that I wrote a Wine Advisor article about those things about a year ago, and Mr. Catania actually came on to the forum and accused me of fibbing about the ineffectiveness of his device.

[David M. Bueker]

Robin,

Please add a "How do I embed a link" to the FAQ. I don't see the topic in the FAQ listing.

David

[Robin Garr]

Please add a "How do I embed a link" to the FAQ. I don't see the topic in the FAQ listing.

Good idea, but not too easy to implement ... the FAQ comes with the software and is boilerplate. I remember making a change in it once, though, so I know it can be done. I'll look at this over the weekend if I can.

Meanwhile, though, note that by hovering your mouse over ALL the buttons on the reply/post entry field, you can get a little tip about how to use it. Put your mouse on the URL button (without clicking) and you get a short but neatly concise instruction.

By the way, I bet at least six people on this board will get this for Christmas.

I'll need your address...

Certain metal objects brought into contact with a wine can alter its taste by bringing about chemical changes in the wine. (Must of us here are familiar with the copper penny phenomena). If you drop this copper gadget into your glass of wine and leave it there for a “period of time” (pretty long time) it could eventually alter the taste of the wine. Both copper and silver can remove those “stinky sulfur” odors, and since these chemical reactions are oxidative (actually redox reactions), so-called “aging” of the wine may be experienced. These reactions however are not spontaneous and they do take time. The wine itself must also be in “contact” with the metal object.
Being an amateur home winemaker I like the idea of being “in control” (knowing, however most of the time I’m not), I don’t like doing anything “un-measurable” to my wines. Placing a metal object into a wine can release “un-predictable’ amounts of metal to a wine which can be harmful.

Salute

[Robin Garr]

Placing a metal object into a wine can release “un-predictable’ amounts of metal to a wine which can be harmful.

Victor, these scams don't come in contact with the wine! They purportedly work from outside the bottle or glass by focusing "magnetism" or even more woo-woo stuff like cosmic vibrations to bear on the wine, working mysterious (and top-secret, allegedly patented) magic.

A fool and his money ...

[David M. Bueker]

Meanwhile, though, note that by hovering your mouse over ALL the buttons on the reply/post entry field, you can get a little tip about how to use it. Put your mouse on the URL button (without clicking) and you get a short but neatly concise instruction.

So there are two little instructions when you hover over the URL button - the second one is the embedded link version?

[Robin Garr]

So there are two little instructions when you hover over the URL button - the second one is the embedded link version?

Correctamundo!

Another example, using an actual sample link, and "(" replacing the required "[" so the code will show:

(url=http://www.cnn.com")CNN News(/url)

Will yield

CNN News

Folks may recall that I wrote a Wine Advisor article about those things about a year ago, and Mr. Catania actually came on to the forum and accused me of fibbing about the ineffectiveness of his device.

Oh, lucky you, Robin! In my case, I had simply made a passing reference to Wilhelm Reich's Orgone boxes in a thread concerning the Wine Enhancer and that occasioned a very aggressive email from Mr. Catania in which he pointedly asked me whether I'd tried the device before criticizing it. In response, I pointed out:

1. I hadn't mentioned his device at all, merely Orgone boxes
2. I'd be happy to conduct double-blind tests of his device and publish the results on the Web, provided that he supply me with one for testing purposes
3. I was archiving all correspondence with him and would turn it in to his ISP should it cross the line into harassment.

Fortunately, I never heard back from him, so I suppose the message got through.

Mark Lipton

The green magic markers of the wine world.

-Paul W.

The green magic markers of the wine world.

I fully see your point, but Paul, that's actually not the best analogy to use because there was occasional merit in the green markers as follows.

Some of the 1980s-1990s CD transports had problems with internal reflected beams through the CD plastic disrupting synchronization. In those particular players, opaquing the edges of a CD (with a marker of the right color, or black paint) improved performance. As far as I know this is no longer a problem. (I know some engineers who demonstrated this and other "unlikely" surprises in complex audio technology.)

Before anyone responds with skepticism, I probably spent more time than anyone else refuting audio technical misinformation online in the past (except maybe Jim Johnston when he was at Bell Labs). Related thread on wine and pseudotechnical gimmicks (with some possibly familiar names) and audio parallels can be found Here.

Cheers -- M

Tim,
A while ago we had a thread about posting URLs. When you post a very long URL, such as in this post, it all remains in one line, thus making the window of your thread stretch out and a bottom scroll bar appear. To avoid this, do the following:
1. Enter (or paste) the URL.
2. Highlight the URL and click on the URL button.
NOTE: For demonstration, I'm substituting ( and ) for [ and ] .
Your message will show the URL with (url) before and (/url) after.
(url)www.mylink.com(/url)
3. Edit the URL by substituting the first ) with =
4. Place a ) just before the (/url).
5. Between the ) and the ( enter text to rename your link.
For instance: (url=www.mylink.com)My Special Link(/url)
6. You can then click on Preview or Post and your link will be displayed as:
My Special Link

Thanks, Howie.

I tried three different ways to get the URL to calm down but couldn't do it.

I will try this next time.

'Preciate it.

Tim,
A while ago we had a thread about posting URLs. When you post a very long URL, such as in this post, it all remains in one line, thus making the window of your thread stretch out and a bottom scroll bar appear. To avoid this, do the following:

Thanks, Howie. I really hope everyone will read that. If you're thinking about posting a really long URL that will stretch the window and mess up the forum display, please embed it; and if you don't remember how to do that, please ask.

Anyway, I went into Tim's post with the idea of editing his window-breaking act of linkage, but when I realized it was for the Catania "crystal," I decided to simply delete the link instead. There's no point in either making it easy for folks to be separated from their money or to help boost the "Enhancer's" google stature with a link.

Folks may recall that I wrote a Wine Advisor article about those things about a year ago, and Mr. Catania actually came on to the forum and accused me of fibbing about the ineffectiveness of his device.

No problen, Robin.

Hey, it's your place I just didn't know how to make the URL behave.

Robin,

Please add a "How do I embed a link" to the FAQ. I don't see the topic in the FAQ listing.

David

Excellent suggestion, David.

I might also suggest that if the posts were all Threaded instead of Flat...the problem would go away.

Placing a metal object into a wine can release “un-predictable’ amounts of metal to a wine which can be harmful.

Victor, these scams don't come in contact with the wine! They purportedly work from outside the bottle or glass by focusing "magnetism" or even more woo-woo stuff like cosmic vibrations to bear on the wine, working mysterious (and top-secret, allegedly patented) magic.

A fool and his money ...

Exactly.


A Christmas 1-800 gift like the Clapper:

Wine on, wine off...the Enhancer.