Terra Andina Carmenere

I was so into the chilean carmenere from the wine bar I wanted to see if Specs carried it so I could try it again. Unfortunately THEY DONT! Where do I look now? :( Anyway, the Specs guy showed me this Terra Andina which he said was very good, and it was only $8. It is a 2008 and still very young, and he said it may still be a bit harsh than it will be in a few years.

So I thought this would be a perfect time to try out my new wine aerator! Yessss!

The aerator is so cool, I tried just running water through it first and the water came out all bubbly! Then I tried wine. Apparently you need to pour the wine so it hits the inside wall of the aerator (not straight down), so it doesn't come out the holes in the side. Then it makes a loud noise and comes out with bubbles.

I poured a small glass of the wine straight from the bottle, and then also a small glass of aerated wine and compared them side by side.

Experimenting was SO much fun! I did several blind taste tests where I tried to guess which wine was which. The unaerated wine was a little harsher and peppery and definitely had a sour kick on the finish. The aerated wine was smoother and tasted toned down. I liked both a lot and they were almost like 2 different wines! At first I could really tell a difference between the two of them, but the more I tasted them, the less I could differentiate. Actually I could smell a difference more than I could taste. I had this wine with a 4 cheese pizza and they paired really well and were amazingly delicious.

The aerator definitely smoothed out the wine, but in a way I felt like it almost took away some of its character. The carmenere lost a bit of the punch it originally had, which I actually loved. Overall I give this wine a very high score, 9/10 both aerated and unaerated!