How to Drink Better Wine

You probably have heard that letting red wine 'Breathe' will improve it. Apparently letting a red wine 'breathe' allows oxidation to soften its tannins.

There are fancy decanters and pouring devises available to assist with this process. I was wondering if letting a poor quality red wine breathe would improve it to the point where it became 'drinkable'. The aim being to save a couple of dollars a week. This mini investigation seeks to find out.

White wine

Red Wine

Orange Juice

Tools:

Blender

Soda King

Freezer

Timing device

I purchased a cheaper bottle of Shiraz and poured a glass out with an 'aerator pourer', this did assist a little to let the wine breathe and the tannins were slightly more mellow.

This was compared to when the wine was poured into a small blender and aerated for about 30 seconds. The blender worked better - resulting in more aeration and softer tannins, but to be honest the wine still tasted pretty average and wasn't that enjoyable to drink.

Having tried to improve the taste of red wine I thought I would also try to improve the taste of cheaper white wine. Two methods were tried:

1. A bottle of cheaper white wine was placed in the freezer and cooled to one degree Centigrade. The idea being with the wine being so cold it would numb the taste buds - bit like holding your nose when there is a bad smell. Use a timer if you place a bottle of wine in the freezer because frozen wine will cause the bottle to crack. Unfortunately, when very cold, the wine still wasn't great to drink.
2. Fruit juice was then added to the white wine to make a spritzer. It still didn't taste that good, maybe using a dry semillion sauvignon didn't help.

I had read that you can make sparkling wine from white wine by using a soda stream machine. I tried this with my Soda King. The process made a bit of a mess and while it did add bubbles into the wine they didn't last very long. I find I like the taste of soda water more than still water and so a cheap bottle of sparkling wine probably will taste better than a cheap bottle of white wine but a better solution is to just buy the cheap sparkling wine.

More expensive wine does appear to be better than cheaper wine, so how can you use your weekly wine budget to enjoy better wine?

Economics has the answer: If $12 buys a cheaper bottle of wine and you buy 2 bottles a week, your weekly wine budget is $24.

Now, if you want to enjoy a $20 bottle of wine - all you need to do is use your wine budget and buy one $20 bottle of wine a week rather than two $12 bottles. Saving yourself $4 a week and you get to drink better wine.