I love my Venturi. I use it without even thinking about it any more. I just pour through it into a decanter. I’ve done enough tasting with / without to know for certain that it opens up red wine and any other testing or comments to the contrary mean little to nothing to me. I don’t use it for white wine though. I suppose it couldn’t hurt, but I’ve never felt any desire to need it, as I often do with some of my more powerful mountain fruit reds. The only time I do not use it, is when I open an aged red where I need to be real delicate – 20 year plus stuff. For those bottles, I’ll just use the decanter, but I use that mostly for sediment.

I just got back from a great long weekend in Napa. We took the redeye to Sacramento, drove to Howell Mountain and starting tasting some killer wines. The next day was Spring Mountain and next was the V2V event where I think I drank three bottles of Shafer Hillside Select all on my own (at $225 a bottle, but for the taking at the event, I just couldn’t resist getting my fill). I’m pretty much pickled. When I get some time I’ll put up some pics and tell stories.