To decant, or not to decant.
That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous youth,
Or to take arms against a sea of tannins
And by opposing end them.
With apologies to the Bard and the debate currently raging on the board about the folly/wisdom of letting wines breathe, I have a practical question for tonight.
I am doing an educational N. Rhone tasting tonight for my son and nephew this evening – 2011 Chave Hermitage and 2011 Gonon St. Joseph.
I like the 2011 Gonon straight out of the gates. Pop and pour and follow over the evening. Have had quite a few of them, really like this vintage of Gonon and have since release. Sorry, I have no data on the 2011 Chave, but the 2012 was delicious with a 1-hour decant.
I thought the 11 gonon needed a few hours of air when I had it a few months ago. But didn’t hurt on pop and pour. Just was so much more delicious at the end of the night.
I’d ‘prepare’ them both the same way, but I’d probably just pop and pour, as you have two wines you are comparing, so it’s fun to see them develop with some air as well. I like the development as time goes on, and you’ll get a broader spectrum of data from each bottle when you go from PnP to 2 hours of air, etc.
Pop and pour to see how a wine develops is just confirming that wines improve with air and most of us (!) already know that. Considering the price of Chave these days I only want to taste it at its best; I don’t want to waste any of my precious sips while the wine is still closed – I mean, stepping back a bit, that’s essentially why we age wines, isn’t it?
I recently had a 2011 sorrel greal hermitage. The first 45 minutes it was a great wine. After 45 minutes it was deep dark and dirty. In a fresh way. I’d recommend decanting.
If only we knew a 24 hour decant is equivalent to 30 years of age. No more need for a cellar. But seriously, wine’s aren’t aged just to become more open.
The 2011 Gonon St. Joseph, while grippy and pleasant upon opening, needed a few hours to strut its stuff. It’s a sturdy N. Rhone with lots of bluish fruit, but the floral and pepper notes leaven the underlying structure. It definitely broadened a bit after a few hours, gaining in persistence and complexity. It’s enjoyable now but there’s a lot in reserve; it still feels slightly compact and linear at this point.
The 2011 Chave Hermitage was the gate-to-wire winner. Wide open without any decanting. Silky, earthy, perfumed with leather and violet notes. Great nose in a relatively young wine. Blackberry, schist and the slightest hint of barnyard. I just love the balance and poise of these wines – very smoov. No crime to open at all now, but I see more development ahead. But it feels like a medium-term ager to me.
We enjoyed these wines watching the rather one-sided Stanley Cup Finals game last night. I wound up just slow-oxing and going for a pop-and-pour. Pairing was tri-tip and garlic sausages with roasted root vegetables. I blinded my son and nephew, who are in their early 20s and are wine neophytes. It was fun watching them struggle to articulate their impressions and endearing to see them trying to impress me with their observations.
They couldn’t name the varietal but they placed the wines as Old World. They also both immediately selected the Chave as the preferred wine. I realize it’s not really a fair competition – kind of like a Volvo station wagon vs. a BMW 7 series. But it provided an encouraging peek into the 2011 vintage in N. Rhone.
We age wines because we hope that they’ll be even better when aged than when young… more complex, more interesting, more resolved, whatever you’re hoping for. So if a wine evolves over the course of an evening, hopefully it’s evolving in a positive direction, i.e. getting better, and presumably it’s exposure to the air that’s causing that evolution. So why not give it some air before drinking, so that it’s already arrived at that “better” place?