My friends were laughing behind me. I'd just tasted what I'd been pouring them for six years.

Dave had just reached the part of his canoe story where Lake Vermilion takes his shoe. The whole table was howling, so nobody saw my face fold up like a lawn chair.

The wine was warm and a little sweet, like a juice box that spent the afternoon in a minivan. So I turned to the window and held my glass up to the light like a sommelier until I could swallow. I'm not a sommelier. I pick wine by the nicest bird on the label.

Then I did the math. This was the second glass, from the bottle that had stood between the candles since the soup. I'd never once sat down for it. I was always at the stove with a glass straight from the fridge. So for six years I'd had the good glass, and my friends had had this.

At midnight I poured the rest down the sink. One glass on the counter had Sharon's coral lipstick on the rim and exactly one inch left in it. Sharon has left that inch every month for six years. I always thought it was manners.

In Minnesota, nobody says your food is bad

They call it “interesting” and eat around it. My friends had been drinking around it for years.

Tom had switched to water “for the drive” three months running, and Tom lives two doors down.

Think about your last dinner party. Who left an inch in her second glass, and who switched to water? Nobody will tell you why. They love you, and they'd like to be invited back.

So I blamed the wine and bought what the liquor store man called “a real step up.” By dessert it tasted just as tired, so I called the only person in Minneapolis who has never once said “interesting.”

The best friend I had to ban from supper club

Joyce is from New Jersey, waited tables at a steakhouse for twenty years and never caught Minnesota nice. She's banned from club for telling Dave, mid-story, that his shoe was a flip-flop.

That Sunday I made her a roast and poured her a chardonnay from the fridge. “Good wine,” she said. I stood the bottle between the candles, just like on club nights, and Joyce set a cold brick of butter next to it.

“What's that for?”

“Dessert,” she said.

By the apple crisp, the butter had slumped like it just worked a double. I poured her second glass from the same bottle, and there was my lawn chair face, on somebody else.

Joyce poked the butter. “Your oven's off, sweetheart, but your table is still cooking. Ask any sommelier. White wine tastes best between 45 and 54°F, and a cold bottle on a dinner table drifts out of that long before dessert.”

“But it was cold when I opened it.”

“So was the butter.”

Serving range 45–54°F: common sommelier guidance.

Then she gave me a test I was sure I'd pass.

Joyce's test had one question, and Grandma's tablecloth barely survived it

“At dessert, pour the second glass without getting up,” she said. “Is it as cold and crisp as the first?” The next Sunday we tried everything I own.

The fridge between pours works, I'll give it that, but I got up so often my watch congratulated me, and Joyce told her best story to my empty chair.

The ice bucket kept it cold too, until it sweated a Lake Superior onto Grandma's tablecloth and got banished to the counter. So I was up again.

Ice cubes chilled her first glass fast, but her dessert glass needed fresh ice and tasted like the rinse cycle.

The gel sleeve hugged the bottle like a good aunt, then went limp before the roast came out, so back it went to my junk drawer, next to a garlic press shaped like a pig.

Joyce pushed her glass away. “Everything we tried fights the room from the outside or waters the wine down. The cold has to start inside the bottle.”

“And how do I get cold inside a bottle?”

“That,” said Joyce, “is your problem, sweetheart.”

Joyce gave it one dessert to stay out of the pig drawer

I almost scrolled past the answer, because I'd seen chill sticks before and figured they all end up with the pig. But this one puts the cold right where Joyce said it has to start, inside the wine.

It's a rod of 304 food-grade stainless steel that lives in the freezer. It slides into the open bottle, and you pour straight through the clear spout on top, so it never leaves the bottle.

Joyce held it up like a steak she was about to send back. “So it waters my wine down like the ice did?”

“It's steel, not ice. Nothing melts.”

“Fine. What about the bottle the candles have been cooking since the soup?”

“In 10 to 15 minutes that bottle is back to serving temperature, because it cools the wine from the inside out. Then it keeps what you pour cold for up to three hours.”

It needs about an hour in the freezer the first time, so it went in at five-thirty, and at six-thirty I slid it into the same chardonnay.

At eight, over apple crisp, I poured Joyce's second glass without leaving my chair, and not one drip hit Grandma's tablecloth. Joyce sipped, frowned at the glass and sipped again.

“Don't tell anybody in New Jersey,” she said, “but it's as cold as my first one.” The pig is still alone in his drawer.

Now it lives in my freezer and goes in the dishwasher with the forks. It's made by Lindner & Co, and it comes as a pair. I already knew who was getting the second one.

See how it works →

In November, Dave started the canoe story again

It was the same eight friends and the same pot roast, and the chardonnay had stood between the candles since seven. At nine, when Dave's shoe (it was a flip-flop) hit Lake Vermilion, I poured my own second glass with a shaky hand and held my breath.

It was cold and crisp, the way I'd always meant it to taste. I laughed out loud right on Dave's punch line, and he thought it was for him. I let him have it.

Then Sharon held out her glass, and there was no inch in it. “Could I have a little more?”

Tom squinted at the bottle. “Carol, what did you do?”

So I told them everything. Sharon patted my arm. “Honey, we just thought white wine goes lukewarm at a party.” Tom had a second glass and walked home, which is how he always gets home.

The second one went home with Sharon, because Christmas is at her house.

I wasn't the only one. 4.8/5 · 370 reviews:

Wonderful, never lukewarm wine again

Brigitte

Simple and effective solution for keeping the white wine cool on the table.

Anonymous

Very happy with it! Wine stays cool longer at the table.

Finn Dijkstra

If you cook for a crowd, here's what I'd do

Get the pair. Wrap one for whoever hosts your Christmas, put yours in the freezer, and finally sit down for your own second glass. If it isn't cold, send the pair back within 30 days for your money back.

Thanksgiving is less than nine weeks away, so I'd test mine at a Sunday supper first.

Next time the table is laughing, pour yourself that second glass and laugh right along with them.

Keep the second glass cold →

Carol

This is a dramatized story based on experiences customers have shared with us. Names and details are illustrative. The reviews above are real, unedited customer reviews.