Letting a wine breathe means that you deliberately expose the wine to the air, to help start the exchange of wine molecules with air molecules. This both has an effect on the wine's flavor as well as making the wine easier to smell.

Decanting is all about removing sediment from a wine, and allowing the wine to breathe. These are things that older, red wines do - young wines and white wines do not usually have to be decanted. Remember that your tongue can only taste four types of tastes. All of the other sensations you get - including things you think of as "flavors" - come from your nose. Therefore, you want that wine to be giving off aromas. If it's not releasing flavors into the air, it's going to taste like strange water.

Just taking a cork out of a bottle does very little. The tiny amount of surface area touching the air in the neck of the bottle will cause no real change in the wine over even a few hours. If you're going to actually create a positive effect on the wine, you have to create a large surface area for the wine and air to react across.

This is where decanting comes into play. Decanters are deliberately designed to expose large amounts of the wine to the air, to help the wine and air work with each other. This helps the older red wines "wake up" and start to have a full aroma again, after years of being cooped up in the bottle. Most of you have heard of or already own a Vinturi aerator. This does the breathing part of decanting in seconds.

Here is what the people at Vinturi have to say about aerating and their device: “Wine which has been allowed to breathe tastes better. As wine breathes, it opens up, and releases its intended aromas and flavors. Traditionally, decanters were used to aerate wine. However, decanting is time consuming, cumbersome, and inconvenient.

Vinturi's patent pending design speeds up this process with ease and convenience. Perfect aeration in the time it takes to pour a glass.

Simply hold Vinturi over a glass and pour wine through. Vinturi draws in and mixes the proper amount of air for the right amount of time, allowing your wine to breathe instantly. You'll notice a better bouquet, enhanced flavors and smoother finish.

It's that fast. It's that easy.”

Went to a tasting at a friends house last night. A great time was had by all. Even though it was a few weeks early, the host went with a Mardi Gras theme. Great food….great friends…..really great wine. Lots of Mardi Gras beads were being worn…….but I never saw anyone earn them…

How can anybody go wrong with New Orleans style food? I must have gained 3 or 4 pounds.

The wines were fabulous. All reds, all from California.

And with the help of the Happy Hour Cork Popper, our CO2 gas powered wine bottle opener, popping the corks was a snap. Just a quick press of the button and the cork is easily removed. These are great in blind tastings as the bottle stays hidden in the bag.

One of the guests is the GM at a local Wine shop, another was the Wine Manager. Needless to say, they were able to dig into their cellars to come up with a few winners. We sampled a few wines that really very difficult for us standard folks to get…gotta invite them more often.

Well, there is one bottle of the Artistry left in my cellar…..guess what I’ll pair it with…