Friday Food Definition: Wine Aerator

I can very easily enumerate what I know about wine, that’s how little I know. I’ve gone to quite a few wine tastings in my time, the last one just last weekend at the Austin Wine & Music Festival but as I taste and taste and sommeliers tell me what bottle I’m sipping from, the names of these wines, regardless of how impressed I am, just kind of float through one ear and out the other. I’ve recently (as of this week), resolve to be more proactive in educating myself on wines. Perhaps a class instead of just tastings?

What I basically know thus far:

• I know I’ve acquired a taste for wine in the last 4 years.
• I know you’re supposed to pair red wines with red meats and white with fish.
• I know I typically enjoy Shiraz and Moscato wines.
• I never tire of dessert wines.
• I do not like spicy or really dry and prefer sweet and light though I’m slowing working my palate up to heavier wines.

I experienced my first wine aerator on Tuesday at Fogo de Chao. During his last visit at Fogo de Chao, Alan was impressed by their wine aerator and I’ve never heard of such a thing, being a little wine-sheltered. It was hard to imagine what he was talking about when he tried to describe what he saw. He said words like “swirl” and “circulate” and “air.” I imagined a complicated artificially powered machine. It turned out to be much more elegant and simpler than I imagined. You place the aerator over the mouth of a decanter or hold it over a wine glass and carefully pour the wine in. This increases the surface area of the wine allowing more exposure to the air which then warms up the wine and brings out more flavor. I took a short video of what it looks like when in use for you.