I HAVE used my carbon steel knife to cut up all kinds of meats and vegetables, but I had never thought of using it to prepare wine. Not until a couple of weeks ago, when I dunked the tip of it into glasses of several reds and whites, sometimes alone, sometimes with a sterling silver spoon, a gold ring or a well-scrubbed penny. My electrical multimeter showed that these metals were stimulating the wines with a good tenth of a volt. I tingled with anticipation every time I took a sip.

My foray into altering wine flavor with knives and pennies ended in failure. But it was one small part of a fruitful inquiry in which I learned new ways to get rid of unwanted aromas, including the taint of corked wine, and what aeration can really do for wine flavor.

It all began when a colleague sent me the Wine Wand, a glass device that is said to speed the aeration of a freshly opened wine and bring it to its “peak flavor” in minutes. During his blind tasting, my colleague found that the wand seemed to soften the flavor of several wines almost as well as an hour’s decanting.

The Wine Wand is a hollow glass tube that has a large cut-glass knob at one end and contains a rattling handful of pierced faceted balls that look like costume jewelry beads. A small wand for use in a wineglass sells for $325, with a travel case. A larger version that fits in a bottle is $525, with case.