YEARLY HOLIDAY PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE: Please don't even think about buying a wine aerator as a gift this year. Wine Aerators: $336.9 Million Worth of Bullsh*t https://www.vinography.com/2021/03/wine-aerators-336-9-million-worth-of-bullsht via @vinography
Wine Aerators: $336.9 Million Worth of Bullsh*t : Vinography

It's practically criminal that these plastic pieces of junk continue to be purchased. They prey on insecurity, are bad for the planet, and generally just suck.

Vinography
@vinography I’d be too scared to try myself but didn’t some reports say that you can aerate with a blender? I can only imagine that a simple egg beater or whisk can beat a ton of air into wines
@EmilieH so called “hyper-decanting” is the wine equivalent of cooking your steak with a jet engine. Can you do it? Yes. Worth the trouble of brutalizing your beverage? No. If wine is going to improve with air, pouring it out of a bottle into another vessel and then back into the same bottle gives it pretty much all the air it needs, especially if you do that an hour or two before you are gonna drink.
@vinography Yes. That is what I do now. But have always wondered about using an egg whisk.
@EmilieH it won’t do anything that vigorously swirling the bottle or decanter will do.
@vinography I imagine but am too afraid to try to use a blender or an egg whisk. And as you said, why bother doing it when there is a perfectly acceptable way of aerating wine (as you described).
@vinography @EmilieH is it worth opening a cheaper bottle of wine early to “let it breath” (or decanting it) - I’m thinking a $20 Bordeaux or something. Or is that just a myth?
@dan @EmilieH no way to know except to try. Will depend on the individual wine. Opening it two hours before drinking isn’t going to magically make a cheap wine taste much better as a rule. But a little air will generally help most red wines. And by a little I don’t mean proper decanting I mean opening a bottle and pouring half a glass about 30 minutes before you’re going to drink.
@vinography Would leaving it in an open glass for 30min change the flavour of red wine if you're cooking with it? Or the flavour gets boiled away anyway and it doesn't matter?
@thespoonless cooking changes the wine enough that aeration won’t matter.