Amongst Lady Magnon's Christmas presents, I usually add a year's subscription to one of her favourite magazines. Typically Elle Deco, Paris Match, or Elle à Table.
Some years back, I noticed in one of her mags an advert for a wine appreciation club called 'Expert Club'. After enlisting they would send you a free gift, then later inform you of their special offers of 'fine wines'; there was no obligation to buy anything. I happily subscribed.
They sent me the above Waiter's Friend as my free gift. I always prefer to use these rather than the standard corkscrews, and this particular one is of extremely good design and quality.
I believe the 'Expert Club' soon went bust (the name was later used by supermarket chain Intermarché), but I still regularly use my free gift. Who ever thought of sending out such 'freebies' by post must have made a very poor financial calculation.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but free corkscrews; yes! I can't think of any other free gift I've received that was nearly as good.
21 comments:
I bought a very nice corkscrew some years ago for a very reasonable price. I then discovered why it was so cheap. We now have almost all o our wine with screwtops.
Screw tops are fine; at least they don't snap in half.
They are much easier but made my corkscrew redundant.
I loved those screw tops when we were in NZ or Australia. But here we have a variety of cork screws, some better than others.
We don't drink much bottled wine, bottled in glass.
My husband has a couple of freebies corkscrews he received from his favourite wine cellar and they work very well. The wine that came with them was very expensive so I don't know if they were really free after all.
Greetings Maria x
I suspect that was the idea of the 'Expert Club', but it all went wrong.
Nor do we; I take my 5 litre containers to be filled at the vineyard. Much more sensible.
I can't think of any free gift I have ever received!
Nor me; other than this one!
I could never understand how some people only value stuff they paid a lot of money for? I love free stuff, best things in life are free right?
I often wonder about all those cork farms I saw in 1987 between the Algarve and Lisbon, mile after mile of them. I wonder if they are mostly out of business now. It is all screw tops on wine I buy.
It's called 'snobbery' Jan. Free is always best.
I remember seeing them from the train between Madrid and Algeciras. All bright orange after having been harvested.
Like you, I always use a Waiter's Friend on bottles that have a cork and have one which has stood the test of time. Instead of a blade (I do have one with a blade) this one has a tiny wheel in a slight recess and is superb.
Personally, I prefer one tool for one job. I hate Swiss Army knives, for instance.
Wine waiters wouldn't use them if they weren't the best for the job! Self-explanatory.
I've never owned a SAK, I always imagine that there are 50 inferior tools, instead of one good one.
Unusual to get something nice for nothing. (We went to a local wine tasting when the girls were here, I am now an expert on corks.)
The whole business of corks is quite complex. They tell a much bigger story than just holding the wine inside the bottle.
The good one being the tooth-pick, which always falls out and gets lost.
My son gave me a year's subscription to an expensive magazine some time ago and the inducement was a large tub of face cream that costs £115! more than the cost of the magazine.....the cream was wonderful and when it ran out I was tempted to buy more but changed my mind...I often wonder if the gift was a mistake!
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