Want to win a Discovery WineStation® from Dacor and the Decor Girl?

This is a Discovery WineStation® from Dacor.

This is Lisa Smith, the Decor Girl.

Isn't that a great shot? Kudos to my good friend Courtney for that one.

Together, Dacor and my friend Lisa are teaming up to give away one of Dacor's new Discovery WineStations.

What is a Discovery WineStation®? It's a combination wine chiller, wine preserver and wine dispenser --an at-home version of the chiller/ dispensers you see in wine and tasting bars.

Here's a description in Lisa's own words:

Introducing the first four bottle, automated, temperature controlled, wine preservation and dispensing system designed for the home. Small enough to sit on a countertop, this would look smashing on the home bar! There is also a trim kit for those super chic wine collectors wanting a flush built-in look. Enjoy the right wine on your time schedule. Imagine being able to maintain the quality of an opened bottle of wine for up to 60 days. Share a taste, a half glass or a indulge in a full glass of wine – you choose. Perfect for entertaining! Speaking of entertaining, this is going to completely wow your techno gadget friends. Individually program the display for each bottle to show wine type, wine year and varietal. With the dual zone temperature accessory, you can even split the temperature by 10 degrees.

It sounds pretty slick and it's certainly the first one of these to show up in the consumer market. These wine appliances retail for around $5000 and that's where Lisa comes in.

Decor Girl and Dacor have teamed up and are hosting a contest to give away one of these units. The contest is pretty simple and straightforward.

Take a picture of your favorite bottle of wine, maybe where you would put the wine station, a glass of wine, people enjoying wine – anything which would fit into the wine theme and email it to me.  Have fun.  The contest runs September 25 through October 4, 2013 and you’ll need to click here for the contest rules. Creativity will be rewarded and PhotoShop's fine. remember, e-mail your photo to Lisa (not me) by 4 October to be considered.

Once all of the photos are submitted, they'll then go to a panel of some of the smartest people on the planet. I'm on the panel so I can say things like that. Once we come to a consensus, Lisa will announce a winner and somebody gets to be the envy of their in-laws this Thanksgiving.

Give it a shot and while you're at it, follow Lisa on Twitter and Instagram and then like her on Facebook. It can only help.

Wow Brizo, now that's a shower!

This is my brand new Hydrati™ 2|1 shower from Brizo. It arrived yesterday and I installed it in about five minutes last night.

I tested it after I installed it to make sure I had no leaks and waited to take a full shower with until this morning. Holy cow. Now that's a shower.

As a matter of disclosure, Brizo gave me this shower head. With that out of the way, let me describe some of the Hydrati™ 2|1 shower's features and benefits.

The new Hydrati comes in four primary styles and what I'm showing above, the "Euro Round," is the one I have. The head's certainly large enough and through a combination of button pushing and lever selecting, the Hydrati™ allows a user to select from four settings. They are: full H₂Okinetic spray, massage, H₂Okinetic spray with massage and pause. I'll explain what H₂Okinetic in a bit but in the meantime I have to say that the pause built into this shower system is something my father would approve of.

When I was a kid he maintained that proper showering consisted of getting wet, turning off the shower, soaping up with the shower off and then turning it back on only to rinse off. We thought his suggestion was ridiculous of course but he did have a point. Brizo's pause function allows anybody to follow my father's suggested showering method without having to readjust the water temperature.

The Hydrati™ 2|1 shower gets the two in one portion of its name from the fact that it's a convertible --it's a wall-mount and a hand-held shower and the spray patterns are adjustable on each component.

Here's an example of a Hydrati™ 2|1 Euro Square in the middle of uncoupling.

The independent function of the hand-held and wall-mount components allow a user to turn off the main head and use the hand shower, use the main head only or to use them both. When the hand-held shower's not being held in someone's hand, it locks into the main head with Brizo's MagneDock® magnetic docking system There's no eyes closed fumbling involved. All someone has to do is hold the handheld up to the main shower head and the magnets take care of the rest. Pretty slick.

Now back to H₂Okinetic Technology for a second. H₂Okinetic Technology is something that Brizo (and its parent company Delta Faucet) developed with the Bowles Fluidics Corporation and what it does is harness the kinetic energy in moving water to alter and enhance the way water droplets are delivered. Each spray outlet on a H₂Okinetic fixture uses the pressure of the water passing through it to take on a very specific pattern of movement. This pattern makes a shower feel like it's using more water than it is and the effect is amazing. This video from Delta Faucet describes and illustrates what this means particularly well:


You can read more about it on Brizo's website too. While you're on their site, look over the rest of their offerings too --they make beautiful and highly functional fixtures.

As always Brizo, thanks!