Use a Blender to Make Your Wine Taste Better (Yes, Really)

The trick to making your cheap bottle of red taste better is probably sitting in your kitchen right now. And no, it’s not a special wine glass, fridge, or decanter. It’s a blender. 

Here’s the tip: Next time you have an inexpensive bottle of young red wine (meaning, it hasn’t been aged), put it in your blender and let it do its thing for 30-60 seconds until it gets foamy. Then, wait for the foam to subside and pour the wine into your glass and enjoy. 

Now, before you run away in horror, let us explain why this works. This technique is called hyper decanting — a term that was first coined by Nathan Myhrvold, the author of the Modernist Cuisine cookbook. The idea is that the blender aerates the wine and softens the tannins, meaning your wine will have more nuance. It’s basically a way to quickly decant wine and age it all at once. Sounds great, right? 

Pierre Serrao, one of the co-founders of Ghetto Gastro, recently demonstrated the technique on Instagram. Serro has worked as a private chef for Diddy, Jay Z, and the Beckhams, so he clearly knows what he’s doing. Here, he used the CRUXGG KING blender that Ghetto Gastro designed, which is exclusively available at Williams Sonoma. It’s a dream for smoothies, nut milks, crushing ice — and now, apparently, hyper decanting wine. 

As you might imagine, hyper decanting is pretty controversial amongst oenophiles. Wine is delicate and complex, and throwing it into a blender seems to ignore that fact. But! That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy an inexpensive bottle and try this out for yourself.