Wine-O-Mat

In case you needed another reason to avoid Trader Joe's, New York now has its very own wine-o-mat. The recently relocated Union Square Wines features this wonder of the machine age and I whole-heartedly endorse it. Here's how it works:You buy a bottle of wine. You get a smart card with 500 points plus 5 points for every dollar you spend. You take the card to one of three wine vending machines (one for whites and roses, one for Old World reds, one for New World reds). You stick the card in, select a bottle and out comes exactly one tasting’s worth of wine. It's a generous system. Woofy and I bought $30 dollars worth of wine, received 650 points on our card, tasted about ten wines and still had over 400 points left. The best part is next time we can taste wine before buying it.All in all a vast improvement over last Saturday.