Thursday, June 11, 2020

Making Wine Coasters in the Age of Coronavirus

001 - 2013

I got the idea of making coasters from the foil on the top of wine bottles in 2013, having for many years saved the foils along with the corks when opening bottles. These coasters are meant to be utilitarian objects as opposed to works of art, and, indeed, we use a rotating selection every night at dinner.

I think I picked out this size wood  — a strip 1/4 inch thick and 3 1/2 inches wide —because if squares were cut from it, they would look about the right size for coasters. Initially, I didn’t realize that the foils could be cut to exactly fit this format so the foils on the coaster above were cut so as to have borders around them.

The first coaster was made from a fairly random selection of foils including:

—Chateau Puligny-Montrachet, a high-end Burgundian producer of white wine from the chardonnay grape

—Vietti, a prominent producer of wines in the Italian Piedmont. Grapes include Nebbiolo (Barolo, Barbaresco), Barbera, Dolcetto and Arneis

—Andrew Will  Winery & Betz Family Winery; from the State of Washington (“Bordeaux blends” and others)

—Bethel Heights, Broadley, St. Innocent and Penner Ash; all  Willamette Valley, Oregon, producers known mainly for pinot noir.



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