Decanting wine

Just recently Holly and I were opening gifts at our engagement party back in Massachusetts and came across a wine decanter as a gift from her parents. Hmmm… “A wine decanter” I thought to myself – can’t be all bad. I love wine. It’s related to wine. Should be good. But, what the heck do I do with it? When do I use it? Is it just a showpiece? Will it make the wine taste better? Should I use it for good draft beer too? Well, here’s what I learned about decanting wine.

First of all, there appears to be three reasons you may want to decant wine:

• In older bottles, specifically red wines, using the decanter will allow you to separate some of the sediment from the wine that is inevitable during the aging process.




• Decanting opens up the bouquet – especially in big red wines – young or old.
• Decanters add a nice touch to a dinner table. Generally they make very pretty centerpieces.

According to Sam Sebastiani of Viansa Winery, decanting is simple. Just pour the red wine into the decanter and really splash it as you pour. Then allow 10 – 15 minutes to allow the flavor of the wine to be enhanced by its exposure to air.

In addition to splashing, I personally “pour violently” into the bottle, sometimes talking to the bottle in an aggressive tone. I think it helps. This method is for opening up the bouquet in a younger wine. So, for all those ’96 and ups that I am drinking right now I’ve decided to “decant violently”.

Now, if you have an older bottle, you don’t really want to use the process above. In fact, you may want to pour slowly to keep the deposit in the bottle. However, don’t worry about drinking the deposit – there’s no harm in it – just a little tannin and coloring that’s precipitated out of the wine over time. Once the deposit is removed, the wine will be less cloudy when pouring and you won’t have the bits in your glass – that can resemble coffee grounds in a poorly filtered cup of java. The bottle can then be rinsed, and the wine can be poured back into the bottle if desired, although I recommend just drinking and enjoying at this point.

The final reason for decanting is because it’s looks nice at the center of a table at a dinner party. In fact, the decanter even looked nice next to the grill as the steaks were searing to perfection the other night. I actually had quite a bit of fun recently demonstrating my “violent decanting” process that includes talking to the bottle, telling it to open up, and letting it know how much I was looking forward to drinking it… Make it fun, that’s what it’s all about.

Decanters come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and costs. You can get ones for $19.95 all the way up to $500.00 depending on your taste and budget. You can buy them online at Wine Enthusiast or you can get them at any store that sells kitchen stuff. Some have tops, some don’t. If your goal is to “open up” a big red, why would you put the top on it? Well, you wouldn’t, so don’t worry about getting one with a top unless you like the way it looks with the top on and no wine in it.

So, to sum it up – you can decant whenever you want and whatever you want. People will say that only older red wines with sediment need to be decanted, but decanting a younger red will open it up too and you may decide to decant a white wine just because you like the way it looks on the table.

There are really no rules here. For us – we decant red wines, pouring the younger ones with vigor into the decanter, and pouring the older ones with a gentle touch to separate the sediment from the rest of the wine. We let it breath for 10 minutes or so (if I can handle waiting that long on that particular day) and then fill up the glasses. We don’t ever put it back into the bottle though – we drink it!

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