Napa Valley Wine Tour

While visiting California last month, my boyfriend and I went on a wine tasting tour in Napa and Sonoma Valley.  What a wonderful experience.  Since California is known for being green in the winter, it was an excellent time to capture the absolutely stunning beauty of the vineyards prior to bloom, (although I would like to return again to see the grapes bloom too!).  But that wasn't the best part.  The best part was uncovered during the tour.  

The first vineyard we acquainted poured delicious wines and I decided to try wines that I had never tried before.  When would be a better time to try something new than at a wine tasting right?  I ended up purchasing a bottle of Barbera.  It was on our second stop where we discovered the wine aerator.  They had used this to pour the wine through at the first stop, however having no knowledge of one or ever even seeing one before, I had just assumed it was a measuring device to pour wine through like a bartender uses a shot glass.  The service man explained to us what the aerator was and how it worked.  We tried wine from a regular pour and then the same wine poured through the aerator.  Wow what a difference!  The aerator allows the wine to breathe in a couple of seconds so that the wine opens up and all the flavors come bursting to life.  This process would normally take a couple of hours of the wine being open and left to breathe before consumption but who waits for that?  I was delightfully happy to have discovered this genious invention and am planning on purchasing an aerator of my own soon.  They are reasonably priced too which is an added bonus!  I can't believe I never heard of one of these before.  It is probably one of those things for example how many people think that Zinfandel wine is white or pink.  They don't know that  Zinfandel is a red grape and that there is Red Zinfandel, (which is a really fabulous wine), and that the white to pink shades are produced from the red grapes.  I am just amazed at how a small gadget can dramatically improve the taste of a wine in seconds!!!