Buy her a Vinturi Wine Aerator. Buy one for yourself while you are at. Heck, buy one for dad and save it till next month.
I’ve been writing on wines and spirits for over a decade, and I’ve seen gizmos good and bad come down the pike. I’ve watched the rise of the varietal specific glassware from Reidel and company, weird magnets for “aging” wine, fancy dispensing cabinets, and all sorts of techie systems for closing a bottle of wine with gas and stoppers – as if you were really going to put it away.
But this is an actual breakthrough of sorts and at a price where you really can’t go wrong.
The Vinturi is a handheld wind tunnel for wine. It has little tiny holes or intake ports on the sides, and an internal funnel. You hold it over your glass, or if you want to get fancy, a decanter, you pour wine in the top straight from the bottle and aerated wine comes out the bottom. As the wine passes through the funnel, air sucks into the holes making a sound like a very small jet engine.
Basically it gets your wine to breath really quickly. Like in seconds.
Folks used to just pull the cork out to let wine breathe, but studies showed it could take more than 24 hours for this to have an impact. You can speed it up to mere hours by pouring the wine form the bottle into a decanter and maximizing the surface area in contact with the atmosphere, but this still takes too long and leaves you with another tricky thing to clean. For years, wine and restaurant professionals have used the shortcut of pouring the wine back and forth between water pitchers safely out of sight in the kitchen. Now you can just pour it through the Vinturi and call it a day.
I recently asked a respected sommelier his opinion and he begrudgingly and anonymously gave it the thumbs up, acting as if the device might put him out of a job.
I gave one to my sister (and myself) last Christmas, and she and her husband are the type of foodie wine lovers who know the differences in style and taste between each region in Bordeaux, have a lot of wine from all over the world in the house, and are somewhat particular. In other words, good critical test subjects. Most kitchen gizmos end up in a cabinet and are never seen again, so the other day I asked her if five months later she used it and she said simply “every night.”
Likewise, mine sits out on the bar and gets used pretty much every time I open a bottle of red wine. I’ve conducted numerous before and after taste tests with the same wines on friends and family and everyone – without fail – notices a difference. The Vinturi definitely does something. The catch is that not everyone likes the aerated wine better.
This will be a matter of personal taste. Not all wines need to breathe, and some wines are better off not breathing. The Vinturi will make a difference in every red wine you pour through it, mostly for the better.
It really shines with younger, less expensive bottles of full bodied reds. The biggest change that happens with aeration is the mellowing of the tannins, and younger and more tannic wines need the most help. Reds we typically call “big” are usually the most tannic: California Cabs, Bordeaux, and Barolo. Fruity wines have less tannins and aerating these can actually diminish the fruit taste (Barbera, Burgundy, Pinot, Tempranillo).
Want to get a $50 cab for $20? Buy a $20 cab and put it through the Vinturi. It’s really that simple. It is also easy to clean, and makes a great conversation piece.
The basic model retails for $39.95 though you can find it online for about $30 (Amazon has it right now for $29.39 with free shipping). It comes with a stand and a handy little screen filter that you can sit in the top if there is any sediment in your wine. They sell a white wine version which makes no sense and I cannot endorse, since there are no tannins in white wine and whites are rarely breathed, along with a smaller “portable” version, and deluxe sets that incorporate accessories like a stand. You will be just fine with the basic model (which includes a small stand) and if you like wine, there is a very good chance you and mom will think it is the best $30 you ever spent. If you feel guilty about the bargain price, throw in a nice bottle of $20 red wine.
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