Every Sommelier I Spoke to Recommends This $31 Tool for Getting the Most From Your Wine

Seasoned wine connoisseurs will know that certain bottles “open up” once they’re uncorked. Upon contact with air, the wine slowly oxidizes, developing deeper layers of flavor and aroma. That’s why decanting is suggested for some wines, especially younger ones that haven’t had the chance to develop over time like more mature bottles. 

But decanting can take hours, and if you want to enjoy the best of your wine as quickly as possible, you’ll need the Vinturi wine aerator. Every sommelier I spoke to recommended the gadget, which rapidly introduces oxygen to wine as it’s poured through the tool. They all agreed that it’s the easiest way to experience the best parts of what your wine has to offer if you don’t have the time to decant it.

Vinturi Wine Aerator

“By adding oxygen to the wine you can open up wonderful flavors in a much faster timeframe,” says Ian Lokey, beverage director at Sushi Note Omakase in Beverly Hills, California. This happens slowly if you pour wine into a decanter and let it sit for a few hours, but that amount of time is not always available. He uses the Vinturi wine aerator for those moments when a bottle is spontaneously opened for a special occasion. He shares that it’s “efficient at speeding up time, and as we know sometimes time is of the essence.” 

Franc Dusak, director of winemaking at Naked Wines, says when a young wine is first opened, “aeration can enhance the flavors and aromas of certain wines by softening tannins and allowing the wine to open up.” Dusak prefers the Vinturi aerator since it “effectively aerates” and is simple to use. You simply hold it over your favorite glass and pour wine through it. As the wine moves through the aerator, it’s quickly introduced to oxygen to open up its flavors.

“These wines have spent their entire lives in tight spaces away from fresh air,” says Colin Snyder, sommelier at L'Ardente in Washington D.C. Snyder adds that the Vinturi aerator is great  for dinner parties, when you may “quickly need to get air into a young wine to serve your guests.” For those purposes, it’s “an affordable, easy to use option.”

Wine drinking is a unique experience to each person, and while aeration could make all the difference in flavor and aroma for some wines, it should be applied carefully. Older wines have already had a lifetime of naturally maturing in their bottles “by small amounts of air passing through the cork over time, slowly oxidizing the contents,” according to Alisha Blackwell-Calvert, beverage director at Madrina in St. Louis, Missouri.

At the end of the day, there’s no wrong way to enjoy wine. All the sommeliers I spoke to agreed on this. Sommsation’s lead sommelier Elyse Lovenworth puts it best: “You will most likely never say ‘Wow, I wish I didn’t aerate that wine.’ But, more likely, you will say ‘Dang, I should have aerated that bottle.’” To avoid that regret, grab a Vinturi wine aerator while it’s only $31.

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