DECANTING WINE

To decant or not to decant?

Majority of wine is probably consumed on the latter basis. The bottle is simply opened poured into a glass and consumed.

In the 10+ years that I have been pouring wine for myself and others I too am of the later part of this question, very rarely do I decant wine.

- So is there any major benefits to decanting wine?
- Will the wine taste… Better?
- Will I feel better about myself?

Yes! The answer is yes, but there is a few things you should know.

One thing that probably happens these days is that wine is decanted and poured from the decanter straight into your glass within minutes. You may have been privy to this special treatment at a restaurant recently.

- - Has this really benefited the wine?

In my somewhat professional opinion I would say not enough to make any noticeable difference for most of us wine drinkers – this can depend on a few things also; such as the age of the wine, and the grape variety of the wine being consumed.

- - Have you ever opened a bottle of wine, drank half of it and then drank the other half the next day or two days later?
  - How did it taste? Was there additional flavours? Did you still enjoy it?

This is essentially what decanting does, it opens up the wine, allows it to breath thus giving it more complexity and depth as both the primary and secondary flavours come together.

Our tip is that when you decant your wine you give it plenty of time to breath – as a minimum give it 1 hour, taste the wine and then taste it out over the next couple of hours and see how it progresses.

Alternatively to decanting you can attach a little aerator device to the end of your bottle – this does two things, aerates the wine to some degree (not as effective as decanting for and hour or two) and stops the wine from dripping.

Enjoy your wine!

Cheers

David.

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