My wife and her ‘wine club’ meet most Friday evenings to relax and enjoy a bottle or two of some new wine they have discovered. They have done this for years. So when Julie has some new wine gadget that looks like it has the potential to be fun for me and the Club, I raise my hand and volunteer to review it. In this case, the Aervana is an electric wine aerator, engineered to enhance your wine drinking experience. To increase the fun, I invited fellow Gadgeteer Ryan Chapman to join us to see if the Aervana lives up to creating a better glass of wine.
Note: Photos may be clicked for a larger image.
According to their website, the “Aervana is the world’s first electric wine aerator. Designed to help people enjoy wine at its best in an innovative, effective and fun way”. Its material build quality and overall look is very nice. It is made from stainless steel, PVC, and black rubber, able to hold its own in the nicest wine bar, upscale kitchen, or restaurant.
Box Contents:
- Aervana electric wine aerator head unit
- 2 x plastic suction tubes
- 6 x AAA batteries
- User manual
- Quick start guide
Specifications:
The Aervana was created by Louis J. Christen III, a consumer product inventor and wine enthusiast. He was dissatisfied with wine aerator products available at the time. So he researched and designed a wine aerator with the goal: to enjoy wine the way winemakers envision. It took him five years to develop “a superior way to aerate wine in seconds. The Aervana uses a patented, advanced type of process that provides proper aeration, with half the effort”.
The Aervana is powered by six (6) AAA batteries and comes with two lengths of suction tubes to accommodate various heights of wine bottles. The batteries are housed inside the head of the Aervana. The tubes slide into the pump’s suction port. Once initially cleaned, the Aervana simply pops onto the top of any standard wine bottle and is ready to begin serving wine.
To say the Aervana is easy to use is an understatement, simply push the button on the top and (aerated) wine begins to pour from its stainless steel spout. It effectively gets the wine from the bottle to the glass with zero drips on the counter top. The pump is quiet and immediately produces a good flow of liquid.
Now let’s get to the rubber to the road part of this review…does the Aervana truly enhance the wine drinking experience? But before the fat lady sings (as I mix my metaphors), let me describe our non-scientific testing method: each person began with two empty glasses. After uncorking the bottle, I immediately poured a small amount of the non-aerated wine into each person’s glass and then re-corked the bottle with the Aervana electric aerator. After everyone tried the initial pour, I used the Aervana to serve them the same wine into their second glass. As we drank the wine, we discussed the difference between the non-aerated and Aervana-aerated servings. The group went through this exercise on three (3) different wines, each from a different quality/cost tier.
(Drum roll please) It was a unanimous, walkaway decision that the Aervana electric wine aerator greatly enhanced the flavor of the wine. Its aeration process smoothed the flavor and removed a majority of the acidity of each wine we tried. The Aervana serves the wine effortlessly without any dripping or spilling. At $99, it is a bit expensive but all things consider it would make the perfect gift for any wine connoisseur on your list.
Updates 02/22/16
We use the Aervana electric wine aerator regularly, whenever we open a bottle of wine. There is no doubt in our minds, this well engineered pump effectively aerates wine giving it a smoother, richer drinking experience. Over the past 6 months we have thrown many get togethers and opened countless bottles of wine, using the Aervana to serve 99% of it. Bottom line is that we definitely put the Aervana through its paces and it continues to serve and aerate wine without skipping a beat.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Aervana. Please visit their site for more info.
Product Information
| Price: | $99.98 |
| Manufacturer: | Aervana |
| Pros: |
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There is a fallacy w this review – the people who were drinking the wine KNEW which glass was aerated and which glass was not. Therefore there was the expectation that the aerated glass would taste better.
The way have done the test would have been to pour and aerated glass and a non-aerated glass in another room, bring them out and then have them taste the wine. Also, the person serving the wine should not have known which glass was aerated.
This is what is called a double blind study. The reviewer did not conduct a double blind study.
@Donald – You are correct, we did not conduct a double blind test. But I did state in the review, it was a non-scientific effort. That said, considering the folks I was drinking with, I stand by our findings/opinions.
One reply and I will shut up. It would have been as easy for you do to a good double blind test as the test that you did conduct.
DON
I’m with Don. Wine is especially tricky, where studies have shown that even wine experts can’t tell an expensive wine from a cheap one and “knowing” that a wine is expensive makes it taste better. See this article for a start:
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/46618070248/the-price-of-wine
/Martin