Decanting, Aerating, and Simply Swirling

What’s a red wine drinker to do? Red wines can be wonderful, complex, and compliment a great number of meals, but they can also be a little bit too, I don’t know, big when poured immediately after opening. The very tannins that give it so much of its body and allow it to pair particularly well with fatty and meaty dishes can make it difficult to enjoy or even judge at first. Hence the recommendation to decant - to pour the wine into a special separate container to allow the wine to react with air and SOFTEN UP A LITTLE. (By the way, merely pulling the cork out an hour before dinner doesn’t help at all. The air is only in contact with such a small amount of the liquid that it makes no difference.)

But decanting seems like such a pain in the ass at times. The extra glassware. The need to plan (way) ahead for a meal, not being able to just grab a bottle while putting the finishing touches on your dinner and setting the table. Sometimes it makes one just say, what the hell, I’m serving beer tonight with the steak.

Here come wine aerators to the rescue. Maybe.

Have you seen wine aerators sold in your local wine shop and wondered if they’d be worth getting? They are advertised as the solution to doing the work of decanting without taking the hour or so to do so, and of course without needed the additional glassware. So when I was given one (Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator was the brand) as a gift last week I was eager to try it out. Here’s what I found.

I tried my wine experiment on two consecutive nights with two different red wines. Not being a scientist, I’m afraid I didn’t do any randomized double blind trials, though I could have if I planned ahead. What I did was compare side-by-side aerated wine to wine straight from the bottle.

On the first night I had a Malbec. Side by side, the aerated wine made a huge difference on the first sip. Huge. Softer on the palate, and so much more smell was liberated from the wine in the glass. For a second sip I swirled and swirled and swirled the hell out of that first glass, for like a minute. Then I tasted them again. I don’t know. Maybe there was a slight difference, but the gap had closed for sure.

On the second night I opened a red Rioja. I did the first experiment again. Same result. When immediately poured vs. aerated, the difference was noticeable better with aeration. But once the first glass had aired out (this time not for a timed minute of constant swirling, but of extended occasional swirling during the meal) and I went back and forth between the two glasses, the gap narrowed, with the aerated glass having a slight smoothness advantage.

So my verdict: I don’t know if it’s worth buying, since you can get the same or similar result through vigorous swirling. If I were a wine rep I’d definitely want one while introducing people to a new wine that can’t be decanted. For others, I’d say I guess it depends. Although I know that with lots and lots of swirling I can get close to the same result with a wine I’ve opened on a moment’s notice, it sure seems convenient and I expect that since I have it I’ll use it whenever I can’t decant a wine that needs it. It’s a convenience, but one I don’t know that I’d rush out and buy if I didn’t already own it.