ChangeMe
Master of Wine
Posts:11169
 | | 10/23/2003 11:08 PM |
| | It's certainly not always a good thing. If you speed up the oxidation of an older wine, it will not be as good as if tasted right after opening. I taste virtually all wines immediately after opening and decanting, and folow their progress. Experience will dictate which wines should be decanted and for how long. | | | |
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GATC
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2420
| | 10/23/2003 11:14 PM |
| | Good point, Board-O. The wines that I drink over a few days are the ones that can age 10-30 years, but have been recently released. When we open the really really old wines, we stand around the bottle and drink it as soon as we can. | | | |
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Bob Bressler
Napa Valley
Wine Lover
Posts:4809
| | 10/23/2003 11:46 PM |
| Quote:
Decanting a young wine has done little for me different than letting it sit in a glass.
It's funny, I used to be a big proponent of decanting of young wines, especially for aromatic development. Recently, however, I have been paying quite a lot of attention to my own wine when I open a bottle. If I don't decant it and let the wine sit in the glass, it dramatically improves after about 30 mins.However the very next pour from the bottle is just as good - i.e. the wine in the bottle (now no longer full, of course) has developed just as well as the wine in the glass. This is one of the reasons that in a restaurant I pour one glass as soon as the bottle is opened.
Another reason often cited for decanting is to separate out the sediment. This only works well if the sediment is not completely in suspension, and I've discovered that it does not take very much movement of the bottle to shake it up. I now try to decant in the cellar when I can. Makes a difference. | | | |
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Dr_Tannin
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2498
| | 11/01/2003 5:20 AM |
| Controversial topic eh?
So the answer is (2) and maybe some of (3)
I believe TCK is correct w/r young wines. The aeration from decanting is insufficient to alter the tannin structure. Even the temperature rise increasing the reaction rate is modest at best. However, opening the environment releases gases from solution (partial pressures, boys) and some volatiles are released not the least of which are the alcohol and sulfurous compounds, which allow the underlying sweetness of the fruit to show better. Oxidation from alcohol to acetaldehyde then to acetic acid takes weeks in free communication with the air, not with pours into a decanter and certainly not with splash decanting.
As I see it, decanting adds little to what happens in the glass, and in fact is just a bigger glass. But is useful to bring an entire wine bottle to that post volatile state. So it is effective for off lines.
Like GATC, I drink 1 4 oz glass at most 2 per meal, so by the next day my wine is effectively completely decanted even after vacuvin. This may be better than the first night, but often isn't. Essentially always the third day it's worse. Decanting would be a mistake for me if I don't plan on finishing the bottle in 1 setting. | | | |
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Bradley Molzen
Bayonne, NJ
Wine Lover
Posts:4972
| | 11/05/2003 5:24 AM |
| Simple for me... since I do my long 6 to 8 hour a bottle wine tastings some nights. If it seems like not much is there on a nice young bottle... off to the decanter to give it as much as as possible. I've noticed huge changes in certain wines... an no changes at all in others... but I love to see if aeration will help at all...
Older wines... I decant in bottle. If it seems fragile and I know I'm not going to drink the whole thing (older bottle maybe?) then I'll quickly fill a half bottle and cork it with no air left... actually squeezing a little wine out and save it for the next day.
So I think really the answer for me is... depends!! Depends on the wine, and the wine's age for me. | |
If you drink wine, you get smarter.... | |
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RawReds
Grape Fermenter
Posts:645
| | 11/05/2003 11:35 AM |
| Quote:
Recently, however, I have been paying quite a lot of attention to my own wine when I open a bottle.
Showoff
on second thought, you probably meant with your wine in the cellar... but it's more fun to visualize you swimming through your Bressler cabs, much like Scrooge McDuck used to through his money vault on the Duck Tales cartoon | | | |
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Bob Bressler
Napa Valley
Wine Lover
Posts:4809
| | 11/05/2003 4:42 PM |
| RR,
I think you are spending too much time down at the pub | | | |
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skwid
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5452
| | 11/05/2003 8:03 PM |
| Quote:
RR,
I think you are spending too much time down at the pub
Swimming through pints of cask ales?
Actually now that I think of it when I was in London it was impossible to spend too much time in a pub. They kicked you out at 11:00 p.m. | | | |
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Eric White
San Ramon, CA
Advanced Sommelier
Posts:9127
| | 11/05/2003 8:20 PM |
| | Well, that depends when you start skwid - as I recall the pubs were open by about 7am | | | |
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skwid
Wine Connoisseur
Posts:5452
| | 11/05/2003 8:28 PM |
| | Actually no, they don't open that early. They open about 11:00 a.m. for lunch and then some of them close for a few hours and then open up again. Although I think some stay open without closing. You can get a different license and stay open later (after hours club). It is all very confusing and weird. The first time I was in a pub I was sipping away at a beer and they rang the bell and I was like "what the heck, it's only 10:45 p.m.". It was the day I had arrived so it was about 3 in the afternoon for my body. | | | |
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Wineaux
New Orleans, LA
Barrel Filler
Posts:1413
| | 11/07/2003 4:11 AM |
| | I hated that bell this summer, especially when they turned up the lights at the same time. | | | |
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