by 
In our Friday afternoon beverage posts, you’re more accustomed to seeing us talk about beer. But, you know, not everyone is as big a fan of beer, so we’ll branch out where we can into some of the other libations. Today, in fact, we’ll go into another rather popular one, wine. With that, we’ve got an accessory that can help you get air into your wine while you get a clean pour – the VinOair from Cork Pops.
Now, you might be wondering why in the world you’d want to aerate your wine. In short, it helps smooth out the flavors and enhance the aroma, particularly on younger wines (this article from WineMag goes into more detail). Now, you can get into all sorts of complex decanters, just let your bottle sit opened on the counter, or you can help speed things along a bit with the VinOair.
On one hand, this looks like an elongated spout, which it is. However, on the top, there’s a channel that lets the air come in. Along with introducing air to the wine, this has the added benefit of giving you a very smooth pour from the spout. Most often, when you get those “glugs” and splashes when pouring out of a bottle is air rushing back into the bottle as the pressure is reduced in the container. With this additional air inlet, you get a very smooth stream because the air can go in without fighting the liquid (to put it in beer terms, this is similar to the concept of why shotgunning can empty a can so quickly).
With the extremely smooth pour, that also gives the VinOair a benefit of being a relatively dripless spout. Prior to this, I’ve relied on a little spout that as a ridge to catch the drip, or just having a napkin handy to wipe up the drops after filling a glass. Here, though, that’s really not something you need to worry about, at least in my experience using it. In other words, it gets the job done it sets out to do. Unfortunately, I did not get any video recorded that shows the aerator in action, or to show the rather interesting burbling sound it makes as it pours. So, for that, we’ll rely on a quick video from Cork Pops:
While wine can be a pretty expensive hobby to get into (that’s true for most hobbies, I suppose), this is one device that certainly won’t break the bank, and compares to what us regular folks would consider a reasonable price for a decent bottle at the local shop. VinOair is available directly from Corkpops for $20, or over on Amazon for under $15. corkpops.com
