Why decanting wine

While aeration may help to soften the initial aggressive bubble that comes from opening a Champagne, it is very easy to extinguish the bubble entirely. As said before, red vintages might taste better if you get rid of their sediment, while younger wines could benefit from smoothing out a little bit before reaching your taste buds.

However, you need to know exactly how long to air your wines out for optimal results. Red wines can take anywhere between 20 minutes and two hours to reach their fullest potential when decanting. Light-bodied red wines will only need up to 20 to 30 minutes. Some great examples are:. Medium-bodied wines, on the other hand, should be decanted for 20 minutes to an hour. The most common examples are:. Lastly, full-bodied red wines take between one to two hours to decant.

Some all-time favorites include:. Most red wines need at least 15 minutes for their reductive traits to evaporate. After that, an extra 15 to 30 minutes will make the remaining sharp aromas a lot milder. At the minute mark, the tannins will become less intense. But, if your wine is reduced, decanting will help. If your wine smells strange when you open it, it is probably due to reduction.

This is common phenomenon happens when the aromatic compounds have gone without oxygen for too long. If you wait the right amount of time, the fruity scents will return. Decanting wines is not as hard as it might look. All you need is a little patience and a light hand. If you do it correctly, you'll be able to enjoy your favorite wines at their most aromatic and flavorful.

If you can't wait to try your hand at decanting, our consultants can help you find the best wines depending on your taste. We will not use your email or your friends email for marketing purposes. Your privacy is important. JJ Buckley has a curated selection of "the good stuff" and they offer a zillion different shipping options, which is useful for coordinating delivery days. Toggle navigation MENU.

Facebook Twitter Email. The most common are: Swan Duck Cornett Standard It's important to note that a decanter is not the same as a carafe. We have the ability to filter with precision and prevent certain solids from forming at all, but getting rid of sediment will always be a concern.

Thank You! We've received your email address, and soon you will start getting exclusive offers and news from Wine Enthusiast. Sediment can be very fine and has a tendency to deaden flavor and expression. Sometimes a winemaker will choose to bottle something with residual sediment, but most traditionalists balk at any kind of haze or cloudiness. In the holistic act of appreciating wine, visual irregularities are bound to make a mark on how we first perceive a wine.

Even just a couple of hours is better than nothing. This also makes it unwise to serve an aged wine that was recently transported. Hold a light under the neck of the bottle where it meets the shoulder so you can pay attention to the clarity of the wine. Stop pouring the moment you notice sediment clouding up the wine. The amount of wine you leave in the bottle will vary depending on the amount of sediment. Preparing your bottle ahead of time will allow for the least amount of waste.

When you pour wine from bottle to decanter, air makes its way into the wine. As explained by Dr. Sacks, there are a few processes happening simultaneously when wine is in the presence of air for over an hour. First is the escape of volatile compounds. The two main culprits in wine are carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Fundamentally, decanting serves two purposes: to separate a wine from any sediment that may have formed and to aerate a wine in the hope that its aromas and flavors will be more vibrant upon serving.

Older red wines and Vintage Ports naturally produce sediment as they age white wines rarely do ; the color pigments and tannins bond together and fall out of solution. Decanting is simply the process of separating this sediment from the clear wine. The question of whether—or how long—to aerate a wine can generate extensive debate among wine professionals.

Some feel that an extra boost of oxygen can open up a wine and give it extra life. Others feel that decanting makes a wine fade faster, and that a wine is exposed to plenty of oxygen when you swirl it in your glass. Plus, it can be fun to experience the full evolution of wine as it opens up in your glass; you might miss an interesting phase if you decant too soon.

A particularly fragile or old wine especially one 15 or more years old should only be decanted 30 minutes or so before drinking. A younger, more vigorous, full-bodied red wine—and yes, even whites—can be decanted an hour or more before serving. At some tastings, wines are decanted for hours beforehand and may show beautifully, but these experiments can be risky the wine could end up oxidized and are best done by people very familiar with how those wines age and evolve.

Ask Dr. Vinny: What actually happens to a wine when you decant it?