Recently found a product on ebay called the wine breather. They say that it
improves wine by sending air through the wine in the bottle. Wondered if
anyone has experience with this product before I bid.

Thanks

Thomas

I never heard of it. I cannot imagine it is much more effective than
pouring the wine into a carafe. Pouring will aerate it and the carafe has a
larger surface area so that speeds up aeration. But then if it is a neat
gizmo, go for it.

Ray

"Thomas Anderson" > wrote in message
news
> Recently found a product on ebay called the wine breather. They say that
> it
> improves wine by sending air through the wine in the bottle. Wondered if
> anyone has experience with this product before I bid.
>
> Thanks
>
> Thomas
>
>
>

Never heard of that particular product, and I would agree with Ray
about decanting.

However, I will repeat something here that I posted previously - if you
have a really young red wine that still needed to age but you want to
have right then, you can "speed up aging" by decanting half the bottle,
then "shaking the snot" (professional wine-maker term. Really. That's
who I got it from) out of the wine for 10-15 seconds. By rapidly
speeding oxidation, you can get the flavors you want in about 15
minutes. However, the wine will be dead in about 2 hours, so plan to
finish the bottle that night, or cook with it the next day.

I suspect this is what the wine breather is supposed to do something
similar, though a little more controlled and slowly. Personally, I'd
stick with decanting.

Rob

Rob wrote:
> Never heard of that particular product, and I would agree with Ray
> about decanting.

I also agree, almost. Actually I would uncork the wine many hours
before drinking but not decant it. This will allow a very slow
oxidation over many hours. This was suggested in another forum and I
have been very happy with the processing in my limited, completely
uncontrolled tests.

>
> if you
> have a really young red wine that still needed to age

Then let it age. Although decanting or using the aerating product can
soften up a tannin wine and allow the wine to open up a bit, IMHO, it
is no substitute for properly aging a wine.

Andy

My only rider to this is that if you open an old quality vintage wine "many
hours before drinking" you are very likely to find it spoiled. My reds of
standard vintage I tend to open an hour before drinking and bring them up to
"chambré" b4 that!
I rarely decant since I find that most modern wines do not need it and I get
pleasure from seeing the wine label. But with a good vintage wine like a
premiere crus I might decant it --- but only just before serving.
"JEP62" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
>
> Rob wrote:
>> Never heard of that particular product, and I would agree with Ray
>> about decanting.
>
> I also agree, almost. Actually I would uncork the wine many hours
> before drinking but not decant it. This will allow a very slow
> oxidation over many hours. This was suggested in another forum and I
> have been very happy with the processing in my limited, completely
> uncontrolled tests.
>
>>
>> if you
>> have a really young red wine that still needed to age
>
> Then let it age. Although decanting or using the aerating product can
> soften up a tannin wine and allow the wine to open up a bit, IMHO, it
> is no substitute for properly aging a wine.
>
> Andy
>

Pinky wrote:
> My only rider to this is that if you open an old quality vintage wine "m=
any
> hours before drinking" you are very likely to find it spoiled. My reds of
> standard vintage I tend to open an hour before drinking and bring them up=
to
> "chambr=E9" b4 that!
> I rarely decant since I find that most modern wines do not need it and I =
get
> pleasure from seeing the wine label. But with a good vintage wine like a
> premiere crus I might decant it --- but only just before serving.

That is conventional wisom, no doubt, but there is a gentleman on
another forum that specializes in very old wines (and I mean old) who
uses this technique and swears by it. I've tried it with 8-10 year old
wines and I've been impressed enough to continue the practice, even
with my old wines when the occasion presents itself.

I've opened first growths from the 1960s that definitely needed more
than the decant and drink treatment. This was before I tried this other
gentleman's technique and even after decanting, the wine needed hours
to open up to it's full potential.

The opening but not decanting allows a very slow ingress of air which
appears to make all the difference but does require significant time.
Of course, you may still have to decant just before drinking because of
sediment, but this would be done as gently as possible.=20

Andy

Pinky wrote:

BTW, Welcome back. Weren't you on an extended bicycle trip or
something?

Andy

And I agree to let it age properly. I've found it easiest that, if I
taste wine, to judge it's youth and make plans to open it when it would
appear to have it's best flavor. Sometimes that's that evening,
sometimes that's years in the future. However, my point was that there
are some free options to the wine breather, depending on what you're
trying to do.

Planned to go to the Black Sea down the Danube and return by other means
but when I got to Budapest I turned round due to lack of trust in my velo
( new rear wheel, new complete derailleur gears and generally "windy" about
similar problems in Romania where it would be more difficult). But I
celebrated my 68th birthday near Bratislava. So I cycled back up the Danube
to my start point, at its source. I cycled about 3000 kms in all and spent
49 days in my v small 2 man tent ( it is really only a 1 man tent -- have a
look at it on my website --- last years trip -- not done this years update
yet but same loading and same velo! --- watch this space).

In 51 days travelling I only had 6 unpleasant days of which 4 1/2 were very
wet. I wished I could have spent another 7+ weeks doing my thing.

ps. I haven't drunk so much beer in the last 20 years! Took a fancy to the
wheat beer -- especially the dark version -- "dunkeln weisbier". But
dangerously high alcohol level. My normal lunch time tipple was a
"radler" ---literaly "a biker" which was what I would call a shandy -- a
mix of beer and lemonade -- but it was still at about 2.5%+ abv..
But it is nice to travel in Europe ( as opposed to the UK) where I can buy a
good bottle of standard red/white wine, 12% abv, in a supermarket at less
than 2 Euro a bottle to go with my evening "one pot stew"

That's enuff!

"JEP62" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Pinky wrote:
>
> BTW, Welcome back. Weren't you on an extended bicycle trip or
> something?
> n
> Andy
>