Came across this for the first time today. A bluetooth enabled automatic wine aerator that scans the wine label, identifies the wine and then recommends how much aeration is required (eg 15 hours for a young bordeaux) and then applies that (or whatever the drinker prefers) to each glass served through micro-oxygenation. At first, I was pretty sceptical but reading the blurb is pretty fascinating. One wine maker was already using it to test reduced barrel samples ie using the aerator to aerate the wine rapidly so they can assess it for blending. Donāt typically go for gadgets like these and very unlikely to do so at this price point but an interesting concept.
I own one. Does it aerate the wine? Yes. It charges and āactivelyā aerates the wine as opposed to the āpassiveā aeration of something like a Vinturi. So it seems like the hour gimmick just controls the amount of active aeration. I suppose I could use a Coravin and try to sample wine decanted for 24h, 12h, 6h, 3h, 1h and compare it to samples from another freshly opened bottle of the same wine through the Aveine. Actually, thatās an awesome idea, and Iām gonna do it.
Let us know if the wine tastes/smells different when you set the Aveine to multiple decanting time.
Would be cool if this actually worked well.
I didnāt think Iād be the first to say this but I think the poster that I expected to jump in is travelling on business.
Fully understanding that there are wines I wish I could pair with a meal but cannot because I didnāt plan enough decanting time and acknowledging that there have been occasions where the last glass was the best, I canāt imagine missing the experience of sitting with a wine and noting how it changes with time and exposure to air.
The desire to drink consistently perfectly aerated wine strikes me as similar to the desire to drink wine that remains identical from bottle to bottle and vintage to vintage - perfectly acceptable if one wants a ācocktail wineā but not for me as I prefer an agricultural product.
Seems like a solution looking for a problem.
I think context matters here. I donāt disagree with the thrust of the post.
HOWEVER, if I have 6 people over for casual dinner and Iām serving a bottle of wine that I think could benefit from some air, Iāll aerate it. Everyone is only going to get one glass anyway, so itās hard to āfollowā a wine in the first place. And non-enthusiasts just donāt care about following the wine. Iām not going to be serving super cerebral wines in this setting, anyway.
If Iām drinking a special bottle with just my wife at home, or among company of fellow wine enthusiasts, I think following the bottle is a critical element of the enjoying experience.
The fundamental flaw with all aeration products is that they assume we understand how it works enough to design tools around it. That is, do we know for certain we can just increase the amount of air slam against a wine in a short period of time in order to do what we think exposing wine to air over longer periods of time does?
Personally I donāt think we do unless there has been some real research into it. When we talk about these things we are making big assumptions about the hows and whys of wines āopening upā.
Plus, what Kevin said. We do tend to fuss over such things far too much. From personal experience having non-wine geeks experiencing a wine āopenā is fun, educational and the kind of thing that can really draw someone in.
Skip the trinkets until they can show proof of what they claim.
I did an experiment with a single bottle of wine, 2016 Pierre Morey Batard Montrachet.
Opened this bottle, and did these in order.
Pour with 8hr:
Over decanted. Can smell signs of oxidation.
Pour with 4hr:
Excellent and fresh aroma. Good taste as you can have from BM.
Pour with 1hr:
Not as good as 4hr, but definitely better than 8hr.
So I drank this bottle over a 4-hour period and could experience approximately the same, as the wine decanted in the bottle longer and longer.
Conclusion?
Wines are always YMMV. This tool can help standardize the decant process and reduce the randomness. It could be less exciting and not surprising to set the hours and pour, but i can still see I am using it sometimes in the future.