“Try this one weird trick” those trashy online ads plead — promising to help you lose that belly fat, regrow a bumper crop of lustrous hair, outwit the market, or jump start the dead battery that once powered your sex life but hasn’t produced ignition since the Reagan administration.
Snapping at clickbait like a famished trout at a farm-raised earthworm will teach you that the bogus secret to these stuff-of-dreams accomplishments is revealed only after 30 minutes of tedious video huckstering. Strange how little has changed in the bamboozle biz. Perhaps the only thing new in snake oil peddling is that today the oil is likely to be extra virgin.
Truth is, wine does have a few weird tricks that have nothing to do with serpents or oleaginous substances produced therefrom. Item: We’ve written many times about the value of the hard decant, explaining that pretty much any wine will be both more expressive and more congenial if first subjected to a rough, splashy decant into a roomy pitcher of any kind (and we do mean any kind: We’ve used flower vases in a pinch). One question we’re repeatedly asked is how to know when such treatment is warranted. To solve this dilemma, we offer (clever reader, you divined it) One Weird Trick. And here it is, minus the 30 minute video.
Start by tasting the wine just as it comes from the bottle to see what you’ve got, then simulate a rough decant by repeatedly passing a couple of ounces of wine from one glass to another – say, three round trips (we call it a slosh). Then taste the result. No big change? You’re good to go. Note a significant improvement in drinkability? Then go ahead and perform that hard decant.
It won’t do much to diminish belly fat, regrow hair or rejuvenate your Reagan-era love life, but this One Weird Trick may just leave you feeling a bit leaner, hairier, and sexier. Let’s see who else notices.
This Week in the Wine Corner
THURSDAY JULY 12, 3-6 PM — GOOD TO GO
NV Le Vigne di Alice, “Tajad” Brut, $19.95
2017 Thibaud Boudignon, Rosé de Loire, $21.95
2017 Jean-Paul Brun Côtes de Brouilly Beaujolais, $22.95
FRIDAY JULY 13, 4-6 PM — STUFF OF DREAMS
NV Pere Mata Cupada Rosé, $18.95
2017 Pique-Basse Côtes du Rhone Rosé, $18.95
2016 Sant’ Alda Valp’ “Ca Fiui” Valpolicella, $22.95