(Credit:
BornRich)
There is all manner of MP3-friendly luggage on the market, many examples with built-in speakers and some that even resemble an iPod themselves. But venerable winemaker Charles Krug has bested them all, in our opinion, with its special-edition "Krug Escape Artist" champagne trunk.
This accessory will not only hold two bottles of liquid gold but also packs a Samsung T9 media player and a JBL "On Tour Plus" sound system, according to BornRich. Making that all the more enjoyable are a set of four Baccarat flutes and an exclusively designed champagne cooler. What sealed it for us, however, is the casino set of 200 11-gram chips.
Making champagne is by no means carbon neutral, as tree-hugging teetotalers might like to note. Carbon dioxide causes the bubbles, after all.
To be exact, champagne makers have determined that making each bottle of bubbly causes the release of 200 grams of carbon dioxide.
Cheers to carbon dioxide. More is involved in every bottle of bubbly than in other wines.
(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)Some champagne makers want to shrink emissions by 25 percent within 12 years and up to 75 percent by 2050. They announced the goals Tuesday at the Bordeaux Carbon Initiative, one of many recent events by vintners seeking to green their craft.
The figures do not include all sparkling wine, such as Spanish cava, made outside the Champagne region of France. The methode champenoise was born in Champagne, and only its sparkling wine can claim on the label to be true champagne.
The largest portion of that local industry's carbon emissions--39 percent--comes from bottling and packaging, with another 24 percent released in the process of making the wine, according to the champagne industry. And transportation of wine and workers makes up 13 percent, use of equipment comprise 11 percent, and products used in cellars and vines contribute another 8 percent of emissions.
The Champagne region of France releases 197,000 tons of CO2 each year--about the same as an average British city, according to Decanter Magazine.
Winemakers in Bordeaux, France, meanwhile are trying to tally the greenhouse gas emissions of grape growing, cultivating, packing, and shipping every type of wine. One Bordeaux winemaking family is harvesting sunflowers to make biofuel to power its tractors, according to the AFP.
In sunny California, winemakers are also pushing to reduce their carbon emissions. Last year Shafer Vineyards became the first to switch fully to solar power in Napa and Sonoma counties, where organic and biodynamic wine cultivation have been popular for decades. However, many oenephiles might point out that viticulture and viniculture around the world have been clean, green, and organic for centuries, if not millennia.
Sadly, my colleagues in Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress last week didn't learn more on the subject by catching the International Climate Change and Wine conference, where Al Gore keynoted.
Winemakers received access to their first tailor-made carbon footprint calculator in December.
Next-generation Web technologies are also enabling wine lovers to assemble virtual cellars and establish new communities. Web 2.0 tools for wine consumers include Snooth, Vinfolio, Bottletalk and Cork'd.
(Credit:
LG)
When it comes to aesthetics, you can trust the Koreans to go over the edge with fancy designs. It started off with the Samsung Bordeaux-series LCD TVs with their wine glass-inspired flat panels, and now we have LG following suit. As part of its Design Art home theater systems, the electronics giant is launching two models featuring speakers modeled after a champagne flute. Each of these sleek tall-boy speakers is dressed in stylish piano black and has a two-way design with dedicated tweeter and woofer for better sound reproduction.
Though we believe LG could have done a little better than naming them HTZ62TZ and HTZ762PZ, these sexy home-theater-in-a-box sets are nevertheless equipped with all the latest technological bells and whistles. Both pack powerful 700W digital audio amplification, offer 1080p DVD upscaling and ship with Simplink-ready (HDMI-CEC) HDMI terminals. Onboard USB playback has not been forgotten, too, though we are still awaiting confirmation on its capabilities.
The $526 HTZ62TZ and $460 HTZ62PZ are perfect complements for its LB9R-series LCD TVs from the same product line and are now available in Singapore. There was no further information on launch details elsewhere.
(Source: Crave Asia)
(Credit:
Epicurean)
Uncork that champagne, because it's booze gadgetry time! In this latest installment of our unofficial series of toys for people who are obsessed with both digital gadgets and alcoholic beverages (but not too obsessed with either, we hope), we take a look at the Epicurean Wine & Champagne Saver, as seen on Gizmodo. This gadget is great for people who like a good glass of wine but simply don't drink a whole lot: using precisely the right amount of pressure, it can keep a corked bottle of wine or champagne fresh for up to two weeks.
No price is listed on the product's retail page, unfortunately, so I'm not able to gauge whether investing in one of these could convince me to upgrade my wine-shopping habits from Trader Joe's "2 Buck Chuck" to something way classier, like Yellow Tail.
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