Author: Dirk Chan
The hottest wine gadget of late has been a class of accessories called ‘wine aerators’, the selling point being it will make your wines taste better. The concept is not new, it is exactly the same as a decanter, premature aging of the wine via oxygenation. The difference is in the packaging. The decanter process involves slow pouring of the wine into the vessel taking care not to mix in any sediment and using the large surface area to expose the wine to air thus (hopefully) leading to a better aromatic profile for the wine due to the ‘opening up’ process.
These ‘wine aerators’ do the same thing except in a smaller package. They aerate as you pour the wine into your glass or decanter thus fulfilling our society’s current fad for immediate gratification. There is a vessel or bowl like surface area to pour the wine into, there is the gurgling nose as it throws the wine around in this reservoir to aerate it before being letting it into your wine glass or decanter. All this happens in a matter of a few seconds (as opposed to twenty minutes in a decanter alone) and voila you have a wine that is ‘ready-to-go’ and ‘singing’.
