If You Drink Wine, This Pro Says You’ll Love This $6 Amazon Find

When it comes to wine tasting, there’s a lot of terrible wine out there. And there are even more terrible wine accessories. Even the worst wine will give you a decent buzz, but a lot of wine paraphernalia is a true waste of money. From decanters that look like Rube Goldberg machines to overhyped, overpriced aerators and wine preservation systems (if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a Coravin), there are catalogues and websites full of crap for people to panic-buy because they’re pretty sure their Uncle Tony likes wine, right? And don’t even get me started on the offensively gendered world of gift bags.

The best wine accessories, and the ones that wine professionals actually use, are often the least glamorous. Case in point: The one thing that I always have in my kit when I do wine tastings and events is a pack of pour discs.

Buy: Drop Stop Pour Disks, $6 for five

Anyone who works in the wine business has seen or used these before, and you see them in tasting rooms and at wine festivals all the time. But every time I use one of these things at, say, a tasting in someone’s home, people are fascinated and want some for themselves.

They are cheap (so if you lose one it’s no big deal), easy to use, and will keep people from dripping red wine on your carpet or couch cushions or table cloth. Just take one of these little flat discs, roll it into a cylinder shape, and pop it into an open wine bottle to form a spout. What makes these better than other pouring devices on the market, like these little slow-pourers meant for pouring small tastes of wine at festivals and the like, is that they will adjust to fit the opening in whatever bottle you’re using, within reason. A pourer that’s a predetermined size only fits the “standard” opening size, leaving a lot of bottles out.

These little guys are very easy to rinse and wipe clean after you’re done with them, and they take up next to no room in a drawer. I don’t recommend putting them in the dishwasher because they have a tendency to fly around in there and get stuck to the sides of the machine (although it doesn’t seem to harm the discs themselves). But they’re so easy to clean by hand that I’ve found it’s easier to do it that way.

We often end up pouring wine in less-than-ideal circumstances, like reaching across a table crowded with dishes and gesticulating hands, or piled on the couch with the lights dimmed while watching a movie, and these are the perfect solution. Once you start using them, you’ll find yourself popping one in whatever bottle you open pretty much immediately.

There’s no magic product that’s going to make wine last forever once it’s opened or make a $3 bottle taste like a $300 one. So once you’ve dispensed with that ridiculous daydream, all that’s left are simple tools that actually work, and the real magic — what’s in the bottle and who you share it with. Pour discs will just keep you from sharing that wine with your shirt as well.

Have you used these? Share you thoughts in the comments below!