I`m a fan of allowing the wine to evolve in the glass.
The glass of the bottle, the glass of the decanter, or the glass of the stem?
So you know exactly what to do now, after consulting the board, right?
I prefer not to decant at all, anything, for the purpose of evolution. I figure I’ve just opened something beautiful. Why skip a stage.
That said I do keep an extra glass around to pour the remaining third of the bottle into to avoid sediment rather than jostling the schmutz all around.
Part of the answer depends somewhat upon how you drink your wine. I’ve tried the not-decanting thing numerous times, and my predominant experience is drinking several glasses of a wine that hasn’t opened up yet, then with the last part of the final glass, finding that it is just starting to show it’s stuff. I would much rather have it “showing it’s stuff” beginning with, oh, say, the second glass. I imagine folks who have the leisure to follow a bottle over 4-6 hours might have a better experience with this.
With regard to letting a wine open in the glass, I’ve always had trouble coordinating this. Say you have a wine that is going to take 2 hours of air to really open up. you open the bottle, pour your first glass, sip a few times, chat, swirl, drum your fingers, look at the ceiling… Sip again–still very closed. set the glass down and pour a different wine, etc. After 20-30 min, the wine has gotten too warm, and still has 1 1/2 hours before it will be really open for business.
Don’t get me wrong–I enjoy watching wines evolve with air, but at least with the majority of the red burg that I drink, the first hour or more of being open to air (and I’m not talking about slow ox here) is generally pretty dull, and I’m usually happy to skip it.
I agree…and if I understand correctly, you would like to drink the bottle of wine when it is at its best ( showing its stuff ).
For me…I would like to enjoy the wine to see how it will evolve in my glass 
No looking for an argument…here is what I said in post No. 2 in this thread:
The answer is variable…and the main point is : What is your purpose of decanting it ?
The other, perhaps more interesting question, is that there seems to be more general agreement that white burgs rather than red burgs should be decanted. why is that? Is it because they are less fragile? do they have a greater need for air? Or is it because they are often served/consumed before the reds and don’t really get a chance to open up?
It was interesting to see those comments. I never thought about it much (I don’t own that much white Burgundy), but (not Big) Jay Miller opened my eyes ten years or so when he decanted a 10 or 15-year-old high-pedigree white Burgundy several hours ahead and it shone for several hours over our meal.
A friend in the trade urged me to decant at least young German rieslings. Again, not standard practice, but it’s proved to be a sound notion.
True also for the more serious Alsace and Chablis wines. I happen to also believe it’s true for Burgundian reds, but there seems to be prevalent feel that these can be uniquely fragile. (i don’t think there would as much disagreement about most other red varieties).
I think the leaning toward decanting for whites is due to the increased use of SO2, particularly in white Burgs, for (supposedly) premox protection). While reds don’t have the premox rep, so sulfur levels are less extreme. So a decant helps air out the excess SO2 in whites.
John, I knew it was a nebulous topic…hence wanted to ask. Wasn’t looking for a definitive answer but listen to what people have tried. Decanting whites (not just burgs) is an interesting point that comes across.
If I drink a whole bottle of Burgundy alone or with my partner over 5 to 6 hours it´s no problem to watch it in the glass (but I still would open it some time in advance)
But at the table in social company of 6, 8, 10 people everybody gets a glass and no more - nothing to watch over hours - and the next wine will come with the next course -
So opening in advance and decanting for serving is the motto!
BOTH red and white.
I think you’re leaping to conclusions. Do you have any reason to think white Burgundies today have more SO2 than other whites, or more than white Burgundies pre-premox, or red Burgundies, for that matter?
I haven’t checked the posts, but I’m not sure there are that many people here who say they decant white but not red Burgundy.
Decanting white burgs and not reds is a sentiment that several burg lovers have suggested in numerous other threads on the board. Jasper Morris recommends that approach in his burg book. (Coates recommends decanting both, feeling that it improves the wine, but only “at the last minute”, much as Gerhard has suggested).
I was close:
“My preference is to decant both though I find it even more imperative for white. Length of time will vary based on the age of the wine though.”
Yes, that’s my experience as well and why I prefer to decant.
John, I was skimming through the thread, and thought I had read a few posters say “whites in particular”. So I’ll rephrase and say that I do think there has been a tendency for white Burg producers to use more SO2, and you’ll see quite a few tasting notes for young whites describe this, and recommend airing the wines to clear out the SO2. That’s my experience as well.
But in reality, I think that thought comes from the fact that it tends to be more noticeable in whites, even though I think reds benefit in the same way.
I hadn’t wanted to post before this, because there are so many answers and opinions, and I don’t think there actually is a right or wrong. Except that I’m absolutely convinced that wines do change with air (despite some fairly recent vehement discussions on this). So my own approach is to try and give wines at least a half hour of air in the glass or decanter, actively swirling once in a while to stir things up. Then enjoy the evolution from there.
I decant old to remove sediment, young to aerate. I use a carafe, not a decanter with a large surface area. I don’t think this loses any part of the experience.
Fwiw Bernard Noblet at DRC does not recommend decanting Burgundies.
+1 -
I open hours in advance and decant into carafe a little while before serving.