This is so very clearly not the case that I finally just had to give up that other thread.
Last night at a tasting of chablis and red and white burgundy, all wines had been given a proper amount of air by experienced participants, except a Dauvissat 2007 Forest, which was popped and poured. It took 2-3 hours for the wine to start to open up and begin to show itself (which is quite typical of Dauvissat). 5 min in my glass several times over did absolutely nothing.
With regard to to OP’s question, there’s a whole bunch of wine that I just won’t open in that situation. It doesn’t take too long to learn to have some wines around that can be pop and poured.
Pop and splash, splash, splash decant back and forth. Then pour. It’s not as good as 5 more years in the bottle or 5 hours open after a careful decant, but it’s better than drinking mediocrity when you want fine.
As far as breathing being ‘fake news’: At least 20 times in my life I have decanted a wine for 1 - 48 hours (not a typo) and when ready to drink it I opened another bottle of the same wine pop and pour, both for the experiment and to have #2 on tap with the time it takes to drink #1. Glad to do it any time I get together with wine lovers. If you think that breathing is ‘fake news’, try it yourself, brown bag both bottles, the results are guaranteed to be blatantly distinctive.
You will get a lot of push back from a lot of people around here, including me. There is zero doubt that wines (particularly younger wines) change over a minimum of several hours after opening. Zero.
My response to the OP has been the use of a blender on a few occasions.
I would pour about two glasses of wine from the bottle and taste it as PnP, then pour the glasses into the blender and run it for no more than ~10 seconds.
After blending the poured-out wine, I’d take a sip of the blended portion in order to see how it tastes in comparison to the wine on PnP. Having done this, I would mix the wine back into the bottle with a funnel, if it is needed.
The super-oxygenated portion combined with the unaerated portion left in the bottle typically tastes better than the wine would have if I had chosen solely one approach prior to drinking.
The truth, for me, is that I almost always have time to sample a bottle over hours and days. It is only when I bring wine over to a family member’s house that such rushed steps are taken.
I like the idea of hyper-oxygenating half and then putting it back into the bottle with the other half. I may experiment with this at low speed in our vitamix.
But to give S. some credit, I’m not really in the camp that says you can’t just open a wine, pour a glass, and watch it evolve over the next few hours. Sure, there are some wines that show a little dumb or simple on initial opening, and need time to spread out (my opinion and experience), but most show pretty close to what they’re going to be within the first half hour.
The dual venturi chamber utilized in the VinOair bottle top aerator pulls twice the vacuum of other aerators and the difference it makes on a young wine is instantaneous and rather obvious to all.
Can the folks here advocating blenders, venturis, and other methods to stir up wine please talk to the folks in the travel shock thread? Maybe we can finally come up with the unified theory of wine handling…
IMO (and experience) super-aerating a wine will only work on very young, vigorous, and forward bottles. With anything else you’re likely to f*ck the hair off the goat’s back, to use an old Norwegian saying.
Super-aerating …(double decanting, splash decanting etc.) … can result in a wine showing mostly structure … and less fruit …not the usual and adequat showing … (and it´s NOT the fault of the wine or the winemaker …)
When I know I won´t have enough time to prepare a (valuable) wine properly … I simply take something easier … a young Austrian white or a Southern Rhone red or a Languedoc …
It´s a pity to waste a young unaged wine in addition with improper handling and serving …
(or some people simply have too much money … and don´t care at all …)
Disclaimer Improper handling of livestock is likely to lead to a series of adverse and unforeseeable circumstances, including temporary paralysis, permanent loss of body function, and malevolent odours.
But to give S. some credit, I’m not really in the camp that says you can’t just open a wine, pour a glass, and watch it evolve over the next few hours. Sure, there are some wines that show a little dumb or simple on initial opening, and need time to spread out (my opinion and experience), > but most show pretty close to what they’re going to be within the first half hour.
Or 5-10 minutes. The rest is sensory illusion(as explained in the other thread).
I can’t agree with that for almost any wine. I often take a taste of a wine right after opening and pouring a glass, then come back it a half hour or more later. I’m fairly sure my palate (and my sensory abilities) haven’t changed much in the interim. I would agree with you if I were drinking other wines in between. Many wines (young wines in particular) start out simpler, then expand to show their underlying complexity after some time in the glass. Again, there is zero doubt in my mind about this, based on years of experience with thousands of wines.
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