To Decant, or Not Decant

To decant, or not to decant: that is the question.

Like Ham­let, some wine enthu­si­asts con­sider decant­ing wine to be a tragedy of the Shake­spearean order; how­ever, oth­ers say it’s great, as it helps to bring out the fla­vors of the wine. In this blog post will go over the ben­e­fits and draw­backs of decanting.

What is Decanting?

Let’s start with the basics. Decant­ing is sim­ply the process of trans­fer­ring the wine from the bot­tle to another bot­tle, craft, or jug.

“OK, but why?”

There are two main func­tions for decant­ing. It is some­time used to remove sed­i­ment from old aged wines, but pri­mar­ily it is to allow the wine to breathe.

Decant­ing was orig­i­nally dis­cov­ered in Ancient Roman times when the Romans used decanters to serve their wine from bar­rels. The pref­er­ence was glass, but after the fall of the Roman Empire, when glass was no longer avail­able, they switched to alter­na­tives mate­ri­als like bronze, sil­ver, and gold.

Remov­ing Sediment

Wines that are older than 5 years might form some sed­i­ment; in other words, the remains after the wine have fer­mented. In most occa­sions winer­ies will fil­ter this out before bot­tling; how­ever, some mak­ers believe that fil­ter­ing takes away from the fla­vors of the wine as it ages. So in that sense, decant­ing helps to sep­a­rate the devel­oped tastes from the unneeded phys­i­cal cat­a­lyst, so that when it’s served it is smoother, and less bitter.

Aer­a­tion

The pri­mary pur­pose here is to allow and help the fla­vors to open up. So it’s fairly com­mon to decant younger wines that are also full-bodied. You can decant older wines, and it does help them to open up, but be care­ful not to leave the wines too long as the struc­ture might col­lapse. Most experts will tell you not to decant an aged wine for longer than 2 hours.

How Do You Decant Wine?

It’s really pretty straight­for­ward: you open the wine up, and pour it into the decanter. Use your judg­ment and the pref­er­ences of your guests as a guide, but sim­ply allow it to sit until it has reachedthe desired state. Older wines require much less time before their fla­vor pro­file begins to break down com­pletely. For any wine with sed­i­ment, you will need to ensure that you remove the sed­i­ment at some point in this process. There are mul­ti­ple ways to achieve that, includ­ing allow­ing the sed­i­ment to sim­ply gather at the bot­tom or neck of the wine bot­tle, but the eas­i­est way is to just use a fil­ter. If you choose to do a free-pour be sure to be in a well-lit area such that you can see the sed­i­ment, and when to stop pouring.

Can You Decant White Wines?

I get this ques­tion a lot—the answer is yes. Really, you can decant any­thing that you want.

My advice for pur­su­ing this avenue for whites, how­ever, is to be some­what care­ful with how long you leave it exposed to air. White wines will lose their struc­ture quite quickly, so while it’s fine to decant a rich Chardon­nay to soften some of the bold fla­vors, one should be some­what care­ful about light whites like Sauvi­gnon Blanc.

What is the Best Wine Decanter?

Choos­ing a good decanter is much like choos­ing glass­ware. There are many options for shape, sizes, fin­ish, etc. Crys­tal is arguably the best option out there, as it is more breath­able than most mate­ri­als. That said, you do not need to spend a lot on a decanter, as almost every type will serve its purpose.

When it comes to clean­ing, if you find that you can­not get the red stains out, try some ice and salt, and this should remove them quickly.

That’s about it for decanters. Hope­fully this knowl­edge will help your enjoy your next wine expe­ri­ence a lit­tle more. Per­haps you have one already, and this will be the rea­son you break it out from its hiber­na­tion. Or maybe you’ll pick one up, allow­ing you to open up a fla­vor pro­file in one of your favorite reds you never knew it had the poten­tial for!