You can now buy machines which you can use to oxygenate your wine before serving. They use medical grade pure oxygen. They cost a lot of money - USD 1,000.00 + and it is probably not worth buying them for domestic use. Restaurants , however, are using them.
Traditionally, we use decanting to aerate a wine. Usually I decant a wine only if it is a very good one requires ageing for 5 years or so before being served. Most wine is now designed to be drunk young and you simply open the bottle and serve it.
Some people are ordering very good and very young wines in restaurants and because the wine has not been allowed to mature, which allows the tannin to soften, they do not taste at their best.
I rarely buy a very good wine in a restaurant for two reasons. I do not know how the wines have been kept and the mark up makes the wine ridiculously expensive.
Some customers insist , however, in ordering a young Penfold's Grange or such like if it is on the menu. The restaurant can then use an oxygenation machine to pump 100% oxygen through the wine for a minute or so to rapidly mature the wine: All very well and good.
If you are determined to buy exceptionally good wine for consumption at a restaurant then I recommend that you get to know the restaurant first and 'phone them up in good time to allow the wine to settle upright before it is decanted an hour or so before you start dining. The restaurant may charge you in advance to do this as they do not want to waste expensive wine in the event that you do not turn up.
If you have got a thousand bucks or so in your back pocket then you might be tempted to buy a wine oxygenation machine. Remember this though: air can be the enemy of wine and too much oxygen can ruin a bottle. An opened bottle of wine can go of overnight even in a fridge. This is why it is best to vacuum seal left over wine for a later date. If you pump too much oxygen for too long into a wine then you could ruin it. The oxygen machines use pure oxygen.
The dry atmosphere is made is made up of about 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen the other 1% is composed of Argon along with some trace gases such as Carbon Dioxide. To all intents an purposes Nitrogen is an inert gas as far as wine is concerned. The atmosphere is far gentler on wine than 100% oxygen could ever be.
Of course the oxygenation machine is wonderful gadget that can impress you wine buff friends but I shan't be asking my wife to buy me one for Christmas. I shall be asking for a case of good wine instead and use decanting and patience to give the wine a bit of zing.
