To Breathe, or Not to Breathe

Hé!

Apologies for the delay, this was meant to be sent out following a weekend trip to touch my Dutch roots, which turned out to be yet another “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” odyssey, followed by a bout of whatever virus is going around. (I am writing this intro during a burst of consciousness from my otherwise narcoleptic state.)

Today’s topic came to my attention from a friend whom I can generally categorize as above-averagely informed about wine, who recently asked me whether or not to decant a 2008 Amarone.

I figure if this person doesn’t know what to do, it’s probably something that others also wonder about. So, today I am going to talk about when to decant wine, which decanters to use, and the one decanter you actually need.

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First thing’s first. “Decant” comes from ancient Latin, “decantare” which means “to sing praises”. Scholars maintain that before going into battle, the Romans would drink wine and sing praises to their gods for protection and victory. Over the following centuries, the singing stopped but the drinking stayed.

Just kidding.

“Decanting” actually means “away from the edge/rim”. When we decant a liquid, we pour it from one container to another, usually to separate out sediment. But as we’ll see below, decanting is used for other purposes, too.

The most common mistake people make is thinking that every wine needs to be decanted, or at least would benefit from decanting. While decanting can help, it can also detract from a wine. That’s because we’re exposing the wine to more oxygen, which interacts with various compounds. Let’s look at the most common scenarios below.

Young n’ dumb

The first type of wine that can benefit from decanting is usually a young, full-bodied red with green—or as I call them, “bricky”—tannins. “Young n’ Dumb”, as it were, as they’re a bit closed and need maximum exposure to oxygen to quickly “open up” and express themselves better.

It bears mentioning that decanting doesn’t speed the aging process. Oxygen doesn’t soften tannins or acid in a wine, rather it can entice more aromatic compounds out that by comparison make the wine seem softer around the edges.

It’s like men: when they’re young (and dumb), they can benefit from some exposure, but exposure alone won’t speed the maturation process—time takes time. (Although time is also no guarantee that a man will mature, either… Alas if only men were more like wine!)

Obvious wines that could benefit from this type of decanting are typically also highly tannic—Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo (Barolo), Touriga Nacional, Tannat as some examples. The more tannic the wines, the longer you should plan for decanting (1+ hour).

It’s not just big, young, tannic reds that could use some decanting, by the way. Any wine—red, white, rosé—that is reductive can also benefit from some airing. Reductive aromas like burnt match, rotten eggs, burnt rubber, will blow off with a little time (15 minutes or so). As a refresher, reductive wines are protected from oxygen during the winemaking process (vs. oxidative wines that are made exposed to oxygen).

Wines that likely don’t need this type of decanting are older or more delicate, light-bodied wines. You would actually stand to ruin your wine by losing a lot of the lighter, aromatic characteristics through too much oxygen exposure.

For example, any kind of wine with thiols (which smell like grapefruit, passion fruit, guava, etc) such as Sauvignon Blanc, those aromas will just waft away, never to return! Better to just pour the wine directly into the glass, and if it’s reduced, give it a little swirl and a few minutes to blow off.

The decanter you would use in the “Young n’ Dumb” scenario is a wide-bottomed one that maximizes surface area. Good news is this is the most commonly-available shape, so it should be pretty straight forward to find. It’s also the one to get if you had to only buy one*, since you’ll most likely be drinking younger wines—which for some regions can mean decades old!

*If you drink predominantly old wines with lots of sediment (lucky you!), then you would prioritize a carafe, as shown below.

Older with baggage

The second type of wine that can benefit from decanting is an older wine, or a delicate wine that you don’t want to expose to a lot of oxygen before serving. However, we would decant in a different way with a different objective.

Older, red wines, tend to throw sediment and while it’s not bad for you to ingest, it’s also not very pleasant to see or imbibe. I call this scenario “Older with Baggage” because as with older men, while they are hopefully more mature, they also typically come with some accumulated baggage that requires some management (and is sadly not decantable!).

There are a couple ways to decant for sediment—you don’t need a decanter, but it helps. One is to decant into a tall, narrow, high-shouldered carafe; another is to decant directly into the glass; and a third is to double decant (decant into a carafe, clean the wine bottle out, and then pour the wine back into the bottle). It all depends on how you wish to present the wine to your guests.

Since the purpose of decanting in this scenario is to get rid of sediment, you can do this and then immediately serve the wine, as the wine will typically not benefit from further airing.

The type of decanter you would use—if you choose to use one—is a tall, narrow, high-shouldered, angular carafe. You want to maximize for sediment catching, and not for surface area.

BTW, this is what I recommended for the Amarone. But since my friend did not have a carafe (or a wine cradle, for that matter), we simply made sure that the bottle was upright for a few hours before serving (in order to let the sediment settle at the bottom of the bottle) then carefully poured directly into the glasses when it was time to drink.

For those who don’t know how to decant an old wine, William Kelley does a great job in the video below demonstrating the proper way to open and decant one. This is the best method for a clean pour. As a bonus, he also demonstrates how to use a Durand.

Champagne

The third major, if controversial, scenario is for Champagne. There is no comparison to be made with men here. Champagne is perfect. 💅🏻

A general rule of thumb here is that decanting makes sense for more powerful vintage Champagnes that have a long life ahead of them, or for vinous Champagnes—that is, Champagnes that are made as wines first, and as alcoholic bubbly drinks last. Typically, this philosophy of Champagne making is not followed by the big houses but more so by small grower producers (another post entirely).

Just like still wines, Champagnes can be made reductively or oxidatively. Unsurprisingly, more reductive Champagnes can benefit from a quick airing. Just be sure not to ruin the bubbles when decanting—pour gently at an angle down the side of a chilled decanter (like you would for a beer). You want to let the bubbles settle but not lose them, especially for an old vintage Champagne (which I personally wouldn’t decant—too delicate).

Whether or not you decant also depends on how many of you are sharing the bottle. If there are two or three of you, for example, it doesn’t make sense to decant—you would just pour into universal glasses and sip very slowly. So long as you’re drinking at a respectable rate, the Champagne in the bottle will have sufficient time to take on some oxygen.

If it’s a larger group, say six to eight people, then decanting before serving makes sense. That’s because you would want to maximize the expression of the Champagne for the limited amount of time it will be drunk.

If you do decide to decant a Champagne, you could do it for 15 - 30 minutes (Champagne will decant faster than a still wine). Be sure to chill the decanter, too, it’s less violent against the bubbles.

You’ll notice a Champagne decanter is quite tall, narrow, and gently-shouldered, that’s because there’s not really any need to maximize surface area for quick oxygenation or angles to remove sediment. As a backup you could use a carafe, but if you don’t want to buy one, you can also just open the bottle and leave it for a while before pouring.

Some Champagnes (both rosé saignées) that I absolutely regret not decanting:

Decanting other sparkling wines doesn’t really make sense to me, although it’s possible there are some others made in the traditional method that may warrant it. I just don’t have the experience to speak about that. I will say 100% don’t decant Prosecco or any other CO2-injected sparkling wine. They won’t improve because they don’t have the complexity or potential to begin with (garbage in, garbage out).

And if you’re drinking any kind of nice Champagne, don’t drink from a flute if you can help it. A universal glass is best (IMHO) but a tulip glass or white wine glass is decent a runner up if you have that available to you. For a nice rosé saignée, you can go even bigger to a red wine glass (Bordeaux or Burgundy). My fave is Zalto (if you couldn’t tell already).

Coffee & walk

Finally, a fourth use for decanting that is perhaps less common but still applied is to hide what you’re serving.

A charitable application of this is for blinding your guests because you’re all a bunch of nerds and want to guess what cool, new discovery someone’s made without the influence of labels.

Another, less charitable, application is that the decanter is used to obscure one’s ignorance about wine or stinginess (hence, “Coffee & Walk”)—in which case if this is you, you had better hope your lady friend knows even less about wine (or has worse taste) than you do. The good news is, as a Third Placer you now officially know better. The bad news is, I can’t help you (or your date) if you’re cheap!

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