Today in Scary Food: Philip Stein Wine Wand

By Anthony Todd in Food on Oct 18, 2010 7:20PM

Our inbox is constantly overflowing with press releases - many of them exciting and interesting, but many others... not so much. We are dedicated to bringing you the best in pointless, over-priced, scary and otherwise bad food. Maybe if we mock enough, they'll stop sending them.

Today's entry into the hall of shame is the Philip Stein Wine Wand. Wine accessories always strike us as a little ridiculous, and the sheer number - chillers, aerators, stoppers, label-removers - always shocks us. However, some of them do have their uses. This, on the other hand, is completely, over-the-top insane. This wand purports to aerate your wine - in other words, to open up the flavor by introducing more of the wine to oxygen. While some "epicureans" have been taught to open their wine an hour before, this magic wand will do it in only 2-3 minutes. And for the low low price of $525.

While a wine stirrer isn't a completely ridiculous idea, this one is. It is encrusted with "encapsulated glass jewels," which, if you aren't paying much attention, almost seems like something worth spending money on. Apparently, it uses "natural energy" to aerate the wine. Yes. The energy of you, stirring a stick in your glass of wine. Or perhaps it's the natural energy of all of your friends mocking you for having bought this silly thing.