There's a reason why wine snob stereotypes persist despite the fact that wine has never been more popular even with the cheap beer and whiskey on the rocks crowd. It simply takes more effort to fully enjoy wines at their full potential. Here are 2 crucial but simple things you must do before opening a bottle:
Make Sure the Bottle Temperature is Right
White and red wines differ in their ideal serving temperatures. Sticking your Chardonnay in the fridge or leaving your Merlot on a counter with a room temperature over 70F spells doom for your flavor experience. Too cold or hot seriously dullens the wine's flavor nuances and aroma.
Take out the guess work and spring for a wine refrigerator. Since most of us buy by the bottle, a 250 bottle monstrosity resembling a kitchen refrigerator is a bit overkill. I recommend a 2-bottle EuroCave Wine Art that keeps each chamber at optimal serving temperatures whether a white or red. And sampling a little of each saving the rest for another day is no problem. SoWine vacuum seals each bottle while being stored.
Oxygenate It
The second and most universally neglected task is wine aeration. It's an added step just as crucial as temperature but for many seems too fussy or unimportant to bother with. A wine's flavor is immediately enhanced as soon as it's opened and continues to morph as it's exposed to oxygen. In the short term (like while drinking), this is a good thing because oxygen showcases a wine's flavor profile while reducing tannins, acidity and sulfides that mask a wine's full range of flavors and aromas. But simply swirling your glass doesn't infuse the wine with nearly enough oxygen to be effective.
You've probably seen some hopelessly elaborate gravity fed funnel style glass decanters. They're mostly on shelves or in glossy magazines and that's where they usually stay. Not only are they hard to clean but they infuse your wine with 6 times less air than an instant electric wine aerator like Aervana which pneumatically infuses an ideal mix of oxygen at 4 ounces every 2 seconds.
It's a simple 3-step process:
1. Connect the food safe PET plastic tube to the Aervana
2. Open a bottle of wine and slip the Aervana into your wine bottle, tube first, and gently press down over the neck of the bottle (the tube reaches just above the bottom to avoid drawing sediment)
3. Place your glass under the spout, press the button on top of the Aervana powered by 6 AAA 1.5V batteries (good for at least 250 750ml bottles of wine) and release before removing your glass
4. Sip and enjoy
*Just be aware that you need an empty wine bottle to properly clean Aervana. Coverage made possible by participating in a sponsored tasting.
