Whether you drink a glass every now and again or can’t do without your daily wine break, having the right accessories can turn your after-work downtime into a sophisticated rendezvous with an aromatic glass of grapes.
At The Barnacle Bar, we’re a team of wine-lovers in search of accessories that can make our wine habit better, easier, and lovelier! From corkscrews and wine glasses to wine coolers and racks, we seek out the highest-quality, most useful products we can find.
We can’t go without saying that we do receive some commission on the products we review, but it’s only so that we can continue to do what we love, and that is sharing excellent wine products with other wine enthusiasts like ourselves.
How We Test Wine Accessories
The first step in testing wine accessories is to narrow them down out of the millions of products available. If you can believe it, there are tons of products that aren’t worth spending money on!
When searching out wine products, we typically begin in general categories:
- Coolers/refrigerators
- Glasses/shakers
- Aerators/preservation systems
- Openers/corkscrews
- Storage/racks
Other categories we’ll explore include products that can add to your wine-drinking experience, such as cigars and cigar accessories.
Finding quality wine accessories can be a challenge, but we begin by visiting wine accessory brands and well-known wineries and looking to see what accessories fellow wine-lovers are using and recommending.
Products with positive reviews on online shops are also something we consider, though we’re meticulous in our research into testimonies so that we don’t fall for false or paid reviews.
When we find the accessories we want to test, we’ll bring them to our own kitchens to try out and research.
Testing We Can Observe and Repeat
Testing wine accessories is our favorite part of our research process (and we think you know why)! This is when we get to pop open a bottle of our favorite Cabernet and put our new products to the test.
Our testing methods are repeatable and can be demonstrated the same way no matter how many times we test a product. This gives us accurate results that we can trust, and in turn, that you can trust. It’s essential in convincing us that the accessory we’re using is working as it’s intended (or not).
During our testing, we grade accessories on a few factors. These can vary depending on what we’re testing, but generally, we’ll grade on:
- Quality of the accessory (did this product hold up to continual use? Can I rely on its quality?)
- Price (is this accessory affordable for wine-drinkers across the board?)
- Effectiveness (does this accessory perform its task well or as intended?)
- Necessity (does this product make our experience better/easier or is there little affect?)
After we’ve tried, tested, and rated every product, we’ll then narrow down our options to pick a winner. This Overall Pick will be the product we feel is best for use by most wine enthusiasts.
We’ll also separate products into specific categories such as the best budget pick, the best wine rack for multiple bottles, the best wine glasses for couples, and so on to help you choose the appropriate product for your needs and wants.
Our Wine-Loving Opinions
Though we know that hands-on testing plays a big role in determining if a wine accessory is worth the buy, we also know that the personal opinions of our team members can also be helpful.
We’ll share everything we think you need to know about an accessory, including what we loved about using it and what we didn’t like as much. Our honest opinions aim to give you the best insight possible into the products we try.
Putting Products to the Test at Home
When we test wine and related accessories, it’s right in our very own kitchens. We feel that testing wine accessories in environments as similar to real-life as possible is essential for determining which products are worth it and why.
We test products in households where wine drinking is a daily occurrence, as well as in homes where it’s just a weekly occurrence to make our tests as diverse as our readers are.
Why Trust The Barnacle Bar?
No matter if you’re just reading our wine reviews for the fun of it, or you’re looking to buy products through us, our main concern isn’t selling wine accessories to you – it’s providing you with information that you can use to make your experience with fine wines better.
We’re a group of wine lovers who enjoy trying out products that we can share with wine drinkers all over the world, and we vow to never share any products we wouldn’t use in our own homes, wine cellars, and kitchens.
We’ll never share products that didn’t pass our tests or hold up to our standards and expectations, and promise that the only products you’re seeing are the ones we felt were worth the try.