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Does anybody here use one? Do they work? I don't drink a lot of wine. Just wondering if this is something to have on hand for when somebody brings a bottle to the house for drinking that night.

Talon,

I was given a glass aerator that seems to work nicely.

I'm not sure they are worth the expense since pouring the wine through a strainer in a funnel should do the job.

Tim

We have 2 but I wouldn't say you needed one. Perhaps a very old wine might benefit from a bit of extra air but most don't need it.

Mary

Bubbles, tiny bubbles . . .

Aeration helps all wines but can kill a really old wine - FAST!

A few years back a famous Champagne house promoted it with a great deal of fanfare and to this day Riedel promotes it in their current dog-and-pony show for their new line of glasses. (Full disclosure, she & I are the smallest Riedel reps in the world; George invited us one day at a PN tasting - - what the hell it beats retail.)

Anyway, aerating Champagne never caught on and the logic always eluded me no matter how much I drank . . . I couldn't taste the difference; if anything, it was a worse experience. Drank the mistakes, though.

For young wines it is said to add about 6 months. In reds, the oxygen works on the tannins (those things in young wines that make your mouth pucker, unlike young lips

We use it for all wines - whites and reds. However, there is a very simple test for you (since the taste of wine is so subjective), open a bottle and pour 3 ounces into a glass. Pour the rest of the bottle into any clean container that has no residual odor and pour another 3 ounces into an identical glass. Taste. Conclusion = ?

Certainly, the aerating attachments are cute and effective but just pouring it into another container will suffice. If you think there may be residue in the bottle that you don't want in your wine, pour through a very fine mesh, CLEAN, strainer which you've placed into a funnel.

For the sake of presentation (when we are not using one our high falutin' Riedel decanters) we pour the wine back into the bottle to serve so that people will know what the hell we're serving.

I am available on relatively short notice to help with above...

First off, Wino, thanks for the good info!

My short answer is no, you don't need one. If you are not really an avid or often wine drinker, you would be better off getting some good glasses (unless you already have them).

Like Wino, I pour a bottle into a Reidel decanter to "open it up". Maybe it's just my imagination but it does seem to work. For us, it also brings the temp down a little. We keep our wine downstairs in a cool cellar, and our house is pretty cool, so sometimes the wines are way too chilly when first opened.

We got our Reidel decanter at Target on clearance, it was like $2.00. Actually, it was a gift from a budget minded friend, she left the price tag on it because it was such a hoot. I think a large pyrex measuring batter bowl thing would work pretty well. It has the pouring spout and you can put it right back into the bottle. Also, just opening it up for a while before pouring can help.

That's my 2 cents.

Like I was saying, a very young wine might benefitl



Mary

I was just reading on eGullet that for some wines, aerating in a blender (seriously) was supposed to do wonders.

Read all about it here

I have an aerator which I got as a gift.

I don't use it. If the wine is old and tannic enough to need aerating, I pour it into a wide-bodied decanter.

Besides, the aerator (a Vinturi) sounds like one long fart when you pour through it. Really.

A blender? Somehow that just seems wrong

Like a guy at a recent casual winetasting that my husband was at - the wine was too cold for optimal taste and he wanted to microwave it. (maybe that would work just fine?)

The correct way to treat a good wine...

1. Open the bottle to allow it to breathe.

2. If it doesn't look like it's breathing, give it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.