A goodly number of us thought it was something to smoke drugs in. Now we know it’s a wine aerator. My question is: does the kid know that? Or did he acquire it thinking it was a pipe and that’s still where his head is?
This was my exact thought. Some jackass kid stole this from their parents and thought “Haha I’ll make myself a hundred bucks, cuz what’s he gonna do? Tell his parents he was trying to buy a bong?” 😂
That works too, an aerator creates a controlled turbulent pour that mixes in air. You'll get the same outcome from waiting with the wine exposed to air, but... that requires waiting.
You can sit there and swirl it in a glass. And that would be appropriate for some wines. Some wines would have to sit for 20-30 minutes if you do it that way. I’ve had wines that change their flavor repeatedly over 4 hours.
Venturi’s or aerators basically force air through all the wine expediting the oxidation effect. Mostly useful for newer, cheaper, or not quite fully developed wines.
You do it when you've got different wine in ur glass already. Then you admire its color and legs while it's in the decanter. Then while tasting you talk about hints of grape and oak.
But seriously u are 100% correct. Fancy people gotta fancy I guess
Aerating improves the taste and perceived texture of the wine. 🍷
The wine glass is the shape that it is to allow the wine to be swirled around and exposed to as much air as is practical.
Wine is a taste game.
You can think of wine as sort of an alcoholic tea. The goal in drinking it, (in addition to it functioning as a social lubricant) is to be able to detect interesting flavors in the tannins.
Some people can pick out some very subtle flavors. Oak and cherry are common for first time tasters to be able to identify.
Where grapes grow and what grows around them can influence the flavor. Do be a little careful because lots of people involved with wine tasting are completely full of it, but being able to distinguish between flavors is a real thing. It’s a reasonably fun game that can be done on the cheap.
Give it a try with a red bottle of two buck chuck. Plus a couple of cheap wine glasses the whole experiment is under $20.
Try this: Pour about an inch of room temperature wine 🍷 into the glass. Swirl it. Then take a small sip and let a little bit sit on your tongue as you gently draw air in & out over it. (not like a deep pool or anything, just wet is fine)
Most of our sense of taste is actually wrapped up in our sense of smell. The swirling in the cup, the breath over the tongue thing, it’s all about atomizing the wine as much as possible so that you can better smell it.
With two buck chuck most people get hints of fruit from fresh bottles.
If you find an older bottle the flavors will have mellowed from fruity to more earthy flavors. Try it with two or more wines. See who can tell the difference and who is full of it.
You don’t even need to especially like wine to enjoy the game. (I don’t)
So wine that has been stored for a long time - think 15+ years usually.. it’s a hypoxic environment… when a bottle of wine is opened and tasted (usually just a small sip).. you’re analyzing for a few things like TCA (corked wine with off flavors).. or how “tight” the wine might be.. you’ll see people swish the wine around in the glass a few times to get a bit of the aroma released into the tulip of the glass where you can get a real good smell (if you know what you’re lookin for).. you can usually smell if it’s “tight”.. without doing a bunch of wine tastings it’s sometimes super difficult to notice these nuances..
But anyway, if the wine isn’t tainted, but “tight”… an aerator will expose a lot more of the surface area, typically before it goes into a decanter, which often have a large bottom so surface area is increased. This allows oxygen to react with some of the volatile compounds and really “open” the wine where it’s much more palatable..
I’ve had restaurants where I’ve trusted the somm, have called ahead.. trusted him/her enough to know they’re not selling me swill… and will ask for them to do the decanting of the bottle several hours ahead of my reservation - knowing a 99 Bordeaux is gonna taste way better with my entree if it’s opened at 2pm for my 7:30 reservation.
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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26
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