I recently wrote a blog entry about using my iPhone for WineLog related activities. That got me to thinking of other wine related devices that I use. The first is an aerator that accelerates the breathing of a wine.

I do not plan ahead well enough to open a good bottle of wine a few hours before we drink it. For a while I never knew the difference between decanted and non-decanted wines. After taking a few courses where the wines were decanted, I knew I wanted to decant wines more. I could taste a lot more complexity in those wines. But we’re always in a rush these days and I’m very impatient. I was desperate for something that would speed up the decanting process, so that within minutes I could have what others wait hours to get.

It turns out that there is a very small elegant device call the Vinturi that I found on the internet one day. You simply pour your wine into the Vinturi that you hold over your glass. It uses magic from the ancients casting a spell to call forth from the wine its most favorable components, or perhaps it’s the little holes that have been engineered on the side to suck air into the wine as it passes through the Vinturi into your glass. Either way, it works. You can taste a difference right away. Even more impressive, if you wait a few minutes and then taste the wine, you get the effects of an hour of decanting (as subjectively measured by my palate). It’s not that expensive when compared to decanters, which makes it a great deal. You can find it at Vinturi.com. If you like gadgets or decanted wines, check it out.