With a focus on old Nebbiolo. I offered up my first and last Vinous posts as a farewell gift (my farewell, not Vinous’s, as far as I know), on the subject of decanting and aeration. I thought it a good idea to post the content over here, where a recent poll showed that only half the board denizens hate me, as opposed to a presumed 100% of a much smaller population over at Vinous. I am not verklempt, but talk amongst yourselves:
You may find this, from Wine-Searcher, to be helpful (emphasis and postscript mine):
[WINE-SEARCHER ARTICLE CONTENT:]
"Tyler Colman considers the delicate art of decanting, and why it works.
Erin Scala has a problem: she doesn’t have enough decanters.
The head sommelier at The Musket Room in Manhattan’s Nolita has only 15 decanters – quite a few shy of the 50 she would need for every wine served in the restaurant to get one. The new spot from chef Matt Lambert specializes in Kiwi cuisine and over half the wines on the list come from New Zealand. Not surprisingly, many are closed with screw caps and they get decanted whenever possible.
“Sediment is the most important thing to get off the wine,” Scala says, prioritizing the order of decanting. “Then young wines, and then red wines under screw cap.” She even pre-decants some wines in the by-the-glass section of the list by pouring the wine into a decanter and then back into the original bottle, a process sometimes known as “Bordeaux decanting.”
Why decant screw caps when there’s unlikely to be any sediment? “The first thing the guest smells can be whatever gas they put in the head space of the bottle, but that blows off after a minute. So I decant every screw-capped bottle to make sure what people taste first is the actual wine,” she says.
Scientifically speaking, the aromas don’t actually “blow off.” Decanting wine allows smelly trace components, known as thiols, to oxidize to form compounds (disulfides), which have an aroma that is much more difficult for humans to detect.
Dr. Andrew Waterhouse of UC Davis explains: “The goal of decanting is to eliminate those chemicals from the wine and let them react with oxygen. These thiols will be removed or destroyed by the oxidation process in an hour.”
Back in New York, at DBGB Kitchen and Bar, head sommelier Eduardo Porto Carreiro also loves to break out a decanter for guests.
“The major ‘aha! moment’ for me was when I as delving into the northern Rhône,” he says. “I tend to prefer more ‘traditional’ producers and when you open them up too young, oh man, they can be reductive. If you hit them with some air it really wakes them up and makes them show better.”
Beyond syrah, Porto Carreiro cites mourvèdre and poulsard as being reductive, and he also likes to decant Loire whites.
At DBGB the head sommelier likes to decant reds as well as Loire whites
© DBGB Kitchen and Bar/Fotolia | At DBGB, the head sommelier likes to decant reds as well as Loire whites
Wine has long been decanted to remove older wine from the sediment it throws. Yet there has been relatively little research on the science of decanting. In 2012, a team at the Shenyang School of Pharmacy set out to fill in this black hole of knowledge, embarking on a study* to investigate how decanting changed the chemical composition of a red wine.
The scientists discovered that the concentration of organic acids (which play a major role in sour flavors) and polyphenols (including tannins) decreased after decanting, which explains its mellowing effect.
Room temperature and light intensity also played a role in the decanting process, they found. Higher temperatures could lessen the sour-tasting acids, and when warmer conditions were combined with increased light intensity, the effect was to “accelerate the changes of polyphenols in red wine in decanting.” So, if you are short on time and want to soften your red, put the decanter next to the fire and turn on all your lights!
However, the Shenyang researchers also revealed a drawback to decanting red wine: its antioxidant properties appeared to decrease after decanting. “Therefore, in view of the health-promoting properties of red wine intake, decanting was not suggested,” the study concluded.
Waterhouse is not 100 percent convinced by the Shenyang study, questioning whether the organic acids could be destroyed so quickly. He also points out that the period used to decant their wines (up to 12 hours in one instance) is unrealistic. “It is impossible to predict how long it’s going to take to get rid of those mercaptans [another name for thiols], but most people would get tired of waiting, so 60 minutes is more practical.”
There’s also a question mark over the ability of decanting to soften tannins. While there’s not been any further research, Waterhouse extrapolates from chemistry.
“The amount of oxygen that reacts [with the decanted wine] is about a micromole [a scientific unit of measurement] and that’s plenty to eliminate those [volatile aroma] compounds,” but the level of oxygen that would react with wine when decanting isn’t enough to alter the structure of the tannins, which are much more abundant, he explains.
“That micromole is completely insufficient to do anything with the tannins – which there are 100 or 1,000 times more of. A micromole of oxygen is going to make about a 0.1 percent modification to the tannin, and the idea that this is going to change its taste is quite frankly not believable.”
Waterhouse suggests that the perception of softer tannins after decanting is just that: a perception and not a reality. “If there’s a change in the aroma because the negative thiols have been removed, not only does the wine smell better, it tastes better.” In the same way, fruity-smelling wines seem sweeter.
Hyper-decanting using a kitchen blender or Vinturis red wine tower
© Simone Phillips/Vinturi | Hyper-decanting using a kitchen blender or Vinturi’s red wine tower
Questions remain about how much air should be introduced and in what type of vessel. One extreme method is “hyper-decanting.” This process is championed by Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief technology officer at Microsoft who has written the multi-volume opus entitled “Modernist Cuisine.”
Instead of waiting an hour or more for wine to breathe in a decanter, he advocates opening a (young) wine and blending it on high in a kitchen blender for 60 seconds. Sparky Marquis of Mollydooker has advocated pouring off a glass of wine, putting the cap back on, and then shaking the bottle. Both methods leave most wine experts as agitated as the wine.
“Decanting devices can only accelerate the speed of the oxygen introduced to the wine. Once the air is present you then have to wait for chemical reactions to occur,” says Waterhouse.
Porto Carreiro agrees that it’s the “act of decanting” that matters most. When a wine needs the most air, he doesn’t take out the blender, instead opting to sit the decanter upright on a table. He carefully pours a steady stream into the middle of the decanter, creating a “mini-waterfall.”
While not every wine benefits from being decanted, more sommeliers are experimenting with this ancient art. Give it a swirl – though just how vigorous is up to you.
What is “Bordeaux decanting”?
When Erin Scala instructs her staff to “Bordeaux decant” a wine, they know what she means: pour it off the sediment, remove the sediment from the bottle, then return the wine to the original bottle. It turns out that not everyone from Bordeaux is even familiar with the practice, as one member of the trade there expressed ignorance about such a decanting method.
But Peter M.F. Sichel, who owned Château Fourcas Hosten in Bordeaux, had this to say about the procedure: “Indeed it is widely practiced when the amount of wine being poured (at larger parties) exceed the decanters available, or if the prestigious wine needs to be emphasized at major PR functions. It is never used in smaller circles when there are sufficient decanters.”
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P. S. Some particularly powerful old Nebbioli, notably those from structured vintages like 1964 and 1978, can take DAYS rather than mere hours in a covered decanter (ideally at cellar temperature) to fully open and reveal their best qualities. For example, the 1964 Monfortino, thought to be a “lesser” Monfortino by most reviewers from Sheldon Wasserman forward, recently took a full 48 hours to blossom and reveal its brilliance, with no detectable loss of aromatics. If a Nebbiolo-based wine is sufficiently old to have thrown sediment, it is never a good idea to aerate the wine on its dregs. If time is limited, at a minimum, the double-decanting or “Bordeaux decant” described above should be employed. (It is, as noted in the article above, essential to stand the bottle up for a sufficiently long time to allow the almost microscopic suspended particles unique to old Nebbiolo to settle to the bottom; weeks, and even months, of standing time are common among experienced Nebbiolo drinkers.) The so-called “Audouze” method of aeration, favored by many, does virtually nothing for Barolo and Barbaresco, which require substantial amounts of oxygen to blow off bottle must and open properly. “Audouzing” is best employed for wines so old that they are unlikely to yield a whiff or two of aroma before giving up the ghost. New-release Nebboli, on the other hand, where there typically is no sediment, will most often benefit from the “pop-and-pour” approach, since such wines often have a tendency to close down quickly and become impenetrable in a very short time.
The optimum time for aeration will vary for every Nebbiolo, and in a perfect world, one will allow enough time to test the wine every few hours. When the wine strikes you as being sufficiently open and aromatic for peak drinkability, the wine can be decanted back into its clean bottle and re-corked. The amount of additional aeration after such re-corking will be negligible…
This translation of a piece by the Bordeaux reviewer Jean-Marc Quarin was then offered:
[QUARIN CONTENT, TRANSLATED BY A VINOUS BOARD POSTER:]
"Among the least reflective practice, here is the astounding case of the double decanting. It is about the transfer into a decanter, followed by an immediate return into the bottle. What kills the nose and makes the tannin coarse and dry on the finish. The flavors have been so driven by the ventilation that they give the impression of not coating the tannin anymore. A terrible choc! Yet this practice is spreading more and more, for convenience, out of ignorance, and especially because operators no longer taste. They think the wine is stable and above all suspicion.
In the Châteaux, it is common that visitors are served with a wine poured in a decanter and poured back into the bottle in order to present them the label. It would suffice to settle into an empty and already labelled bottle to prevent this deadly return.
The height is to meet the owners or relatives of famous consultants who, during a visit of the Château, tell you that there is the need to process the grapes gently, advocate the use of gravity, absence of pumping, ageing on the lees, no racking to keep all the fruit, in short, everything that can stress the wine, and then, boom! serve you the wine decanted twice, without even realizing they are speaking of a taste that it no longer has.
Finally, open a bottle in advance is useless if it is not made at least eight hours in advance. Too little oxygen passes through the neck. As Emile Peynaud said in “Le Goût du vin”, more oxygen is dissolved in the 15 seconds of serving a glass, than in eight hours of opening the bottle.”
[THE REST IS MY CONTENT:]
And finally, this by yours truly:
I agree with Quarin that “slow-o” is myth rather than reality, owing to the inability of oxygen to interact with wine because of the painfully obvious “bottlenecking” problem (save very minimal oxygenization over many, many hours). A little bottle funk blowing off is not to be equated with proper aeration, and only lack of decanting experimentation and experience leads people to believe that Audouzing is useful for anyone but Audouze and his cadaverous wines. I agree with Quarin that wine aerates best in the glass, which is why many Bordeaux drinkers in particular favor enjoying suitably accessible Bordeaux in the glass over many hours. Bordeaux is not Nebbiolo, however. It needs much less air, perhaps in part because it is a blend of different grapes. (Chateauneuf-du-Pape also does well with relatively little aeration.) I could not disagree more with Quarin about double decanting. Decanting is essential to any wine which has thrown any degree of sediment, and decanting back into a clean bottle, in whatever time frame is desirable, is merely a way to stop aeration when the process is suitably complete. The “delicacy of wine” business is utter foolishness. Wine can be decanted slowly and carefully with no adverse impact on the wine, and much positive impact from the decanting process, as described in the other thread. Indeed, some people who have not stood their wines upright far enough in advance are able (with some difficulty, to be sure) to decant their wines out of a cradle, allowing the sediment to stay collected on the side of the bottle. (That is not the best approach, however, for old Nebbiolo and its notoriously fine suspended particulate, which is best dealt with by standing the bottle upright for weeks or months in advance.)
Bordeaux is not Burgundy, and it is most particularly not Nebbiolo. The latter two benefit enormously from aeration, whether it is required for 2 hours or 2 days, and old Nebbiolo cannot even be properly understood and appreciated without it. (Notice how often your own Marius Fries gets great results as he follows a bottle of Nebbiolo-based wine over 2 or 3 days, even starting with a pop and pour.) The amount of aeration required varies from bottle to bottle, and it is certainly true that the exigencies of modern life often do not allow enough time for proper decanting and aeration, but that is little excuse for wines which are to be served at home. There is considerable paranoia about loss of aromatics in the decanting process, but that, too, is more myth than reality. First of all, there are typically some nasty aromatics that MUST blow off in old Nebbiolo (and other wines as well) before the wine can be enjoyed. Next, Nebbiolo does not readily give up all of its aromatics in one initial shot, as an old, very delicate might; they emerge and evolve over time. (I have had few older Nebbioli where the aromatics and palate did not emerge together. Those that yield their aromatics quickly tend to be wines not long for this world anyway.) If one is still paranoid, however, do a quick double-decant back into a clean bottle at a minimum. (At least your wine will not be flawed by its own sediment.) Second choice would be to leave the wine in the decanter but to cover the decanter. That at least gives the wine a fighting chance at decent aeration. The optimum option for both aeration and aromatics? Decant the wine and place the open (or covered) decanter back in your cellar or another cool spot to open slowly. (Something akin to slow-o, but where there is actually aeration going on.) If you still think that aromatics or palate are at risk, do this: open a carbonated soft drink and leave the can at a constant 40-55-degree temperature, and see how long it takes the drink to go flat. Finally, after a properly decanted wine is poured, a quick swirl will be all one needs to understand that the aromatics live on. Even if it were true that the proposed method gives up at least something on the aromatics front, I would settle for 90% of the aromatics and 100% of the fruit and complex secondary and tertiary flavors of an older Nebbiolo every time.
Add up the tasting notes that you have read on this and wine boards and in blogs over the years where the author notes, “I think that this wine could have used more air”, and how many false readings of entire VINTAGES (usually of wines not old enough to make opening them profitable), also most often involving improperly decanted and aerated wines, there are out there, and you begin to understand the order of magnitude of the problem. Tasting new-release wines with no sediment at events like La Festa is one thing (indeed, such wines risk getting too much air, and would perhaps be better served by popping and pouring, even if that might be impractical for large tasting events), but tasting old wines in general, and old Nebbiolo in particular, is another thing entirely. For that reason, I favor fewer wines being given optimal, individualized preparation and being served at home, or transported to a restaurant after double decanting (careful transportation being no problem at all when the dregs and fine sediment have been decanted away), over tasting events where wines necessarily get “one size fits all” treatment and can show well, but never in peak form.
This is not rocket science. It is simply the product of too much ignorance, too little experimentation and too many old wine’s tales being passed around, along with a huge number of wine lovers desperately and subjectively clinging to what they choose to believe because, well, it is theirs and nobody else can disprove subjective beliefs. It rather galls me that sommeliers are among the biggest offenders in all of this, because there is no possibility that most older wines can be properly served, absent arrangements being made by diners hours or days in advance. Open your mind, do the experimentation (starting with the half decanted, half slow-o’ed bottle test) and see what you find. It takes a while to learn what constitutes peak drinkability for a given individual’s palate, so a lot of experimentation with aeration times is required at first with older Nebbiolo. Trust me…it will be worth the effort.
When asked how I would define “older Nebbiolo”, this was my answer:
Not an easy question, Mark. For me, I might drink 2005, 2008 (certain wines), 2009 or perhaps 2011 Nebbioli while they are “young”, which, for sake of argument, I will arbitrarily define as within 10 years of the vintage. Most of the best wines from years like 1989, 1996, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 (again, some of the more structured wines) and 2010 are still far too young to drink, and if you did not pop and pour them upon release, there is not much reason to open them now. 1999 and 2000 both seem to be a mix of wines becoming drinkable and those best left alone. (Let somebody else drink the 2002s (except the Monfortino) and 2003s, and let others take the young wines “for the team” as well.)
I would put vintages like 1997 and 1998 in the “middle age” category. Because they are weak vintages, I would put 1993 and 1995 in either the “middle age” or the “older Nebbiolo” category. Then, it is pretty much free sailing in “older Nebbiolo” waters, beginning with the 1990 vintage (1989’s best wines largely excluded) and working backward. There are some poor vintages along the way, of course, and there are going to be particular wines from stronger vintages like 1982, 1978 and 1964 that may not be into their prime drinking windows yet, but even there, the wines will typically yield pleasure with enough aeration. (Good example: 1978 Giacosa Barolo Collina Rionda Riserva Speciale; nowhere near as ready to drink as any other Giacosa Rionda Riserva.) By and large, however, all 1990 and earlier vintages qualify as “older”. The key is that, despite that cutoff, some wines are always going to be younger and less generous than others, and that is where the individualized treatment of each wine that I recommend above comes into play so profitably. As you might imagine, you cannot even expect two bottles of the same wine from the same case to perform identically. The only great wine truism that remains true is that there are no great wines, just great bottles.
What I have set forth above is biased in the sense that it does not take into account those drinkers, and particularly those reviewers and retailers who taste wines for a living who are far more tolerant of tannins and, if applicable, oak than many of the rest of us are. I do believe, however, that every good wine has a “sweet spot” that will be recognized as such by every taster of the wine, and everything that I do with older wines (which are maybe 15 or 20-to-1 old Nebbioli to other wines these days) is aimed as drinking “sweet spot” wines as often as possible. I am enjoying serious success at that in recent years…
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Very surprised at such advice