Decanting Wine

Decanting wine may seem like an unnecessary step slowing the process from the bottle to your glass but did you know there are a lot of real benefits to decanting your wine before it makes its way to your glass?

First what is the definition of “decanting a wine”. Decanting a wine simply means to pour your wine into some type of vessel to let it breathe. There are a ton of different types of vessels you can do this in and I’ll share with you some of my favorites.

Benefits of Decanting a Wine

There are two main benefits to decanting a wine:

To let the wine “breathe”
To separate wine from sediment

Letting the Wine Breathe

Decanting a wine, or letting it breathe can provide smoothness to a wine before enjoying by reducing acid and tannins in the wine. Oxidizing a wine through this breathing process can also turn some sulfur compounds that might arise in your wine less noticeable.

Red wines are the primary benefactors of the decanting process (but you can absolutely decant some full bodied whites and even orange wines) and specifically wines with a good amount of tannins. I usually will decant all of my red wines for at least 30 minutes before drinking unless its a lighter bodied wine like a Gamay or a Pinot Noir.

Decanting can also really improve a value wine or a younger wine by giving it some of the benefits the aging process would bring and by softening any overpowering or unbalanced acidity.

There are folks out there that will tell you that decanting is unnecessary and that you will get the same effect as decanting by swirling the wine in your glass. And while I don’t disagree that the swirling does expose your wine to oxygen and in part provide the same benefit, there are certainly wines that could use a good couple of hours softening and opening up in a decanter.

Separate Wine from Sediment

The other valuable role decanting plays is to separate any sediment that may have collected in a bottle over time (especially in an aged, high tannin wine) from the wine. The best process to do this is to allow your wine to sit vertical for 1 day prior to serving (since you should be storing horizontally) this should allow all of the sediment to float to the bottom of the bottle. Then you should carefully pour the wine slowly into the decanter at an angle until you start to see sediment. You can then either stop pouring or use a strainer to separate the remaining sediment.

How Long to Decant Wine For

The rule of thumb to decide how long to decant a wine for is usually related to tannins, body, and age. The more tannins or body a wine has the longer you may want to decant the wine to soften those tannins and compounds. Also, the older a wine is the more sensitive they may be to decanting because the longer a wine has aged the more oxygen it has been exposed to, so setting up an aged wine for a long period of oxygen can have a negative effect if it’s a light bodied wine like a burgundy. There are however some older wines with high tannins that may require MORE time to open due to the aging process. When in doubt, ask the producer you got the wine from. They will be able to tell you exactly how to serve your wine for the best result.

Types of Decanters

There are a ton of different decanter shapes for example Swan, Cornett and Duck. I prefer to use a standard decanter for my everyday wines and a wider based decanter for my wines I want to get greater aeration effect (wider based means more of the wine is exposed to air). You can also you an aerator as your pour your wine to either get an instant effect into your glass OR couple it with the decanter for double duty work. The aerator device simply speeds up the process of exposing the wine to air.

Here are some of my favorites (click image to shop):