How do I know how long to decant any particular bottle?

Belatedly through drinking a very nice bottle, I realized I did not decant sufficiently… [head-bang.gif]

I’d love to avoid making that mistake again!

It depends on the wine… :slight_smile: Seriously, some tannic wines aren’t meant for early consumption, like Bordeaux from a good vintage. It pays to read reviews and learn the characteristics of each vintage, for the types of wines you are particularly interested in.

For wines that should be “reasonable” early on, I used to decant for an hour or 90 minutes, into a carafe, with a moderate surface area. The wine gets plenty of oxygen just being poured, it doesn’t usually need more from a lot of surface area.

Some tannic wines will actually close down more with air time. Likewise, too cold a serving temperature will harden them further.

For excellent older wines, and even younger wines of moderate body, I now use the slow-O approach, i.e. just pull the cork about 5 hours early and don;t decant (and pour a small exploratory taste, to see what you’ve got and to enlarge the surface area a bit). Older wines really respond beautifully to this approach, whereas they can get too much of a jolt of oxygen from decanting and then will taste a bit “blunted”, with less vitality and complexity compared to the non-decanted version. Cool serving temperature is always very important.

Got to think about the dregs/sediment removal also.

Thanks, that makes sense. I guess I really should have read up, at least the CT reviews, to see how others have handled their wine. The slow-O thing sounds interesting, I’ve never really heard of it. When you say ‘cool serving temperature,’ do you mean the low 60s? I live in the tropics now, so it’s a bit challenging, maintaining something below 80s…

As for dregs/sediment, what I’ve typically done is to decant half the bottle first (after letting it stand for 15 minutes or so), stand up the other half, let it settle, then decant the rest, and try to pour slowly so most of the sediment stays in the bottle. Would love to hear any superior techniques!

Yes, low '60s is generally the best. The fruit strengthens in flavor and the wine “pulls together” in structure. Too warm and the wine will usually get soft and “flabby”. Too cold and it may get hard. I use a small insulated picnic bag with one of those frozen gel freezer blocks inside to keep the bottle cool in warm weather!

I don’t have any particular issues with sediment, as the bottles I drink have been resting undisturbed in my cellar for 10+ years, and if I pour gently, with the front label “up” (the way the bottle was stored, so sediment is on the other side), I can avoid disturbing the sediment. Besides, the sediment apparently becomes soft with age, so I don’t find it disagreeable to taste in an older wine!

It also depends on White or Red, the temperature of the wine will also have an effect on the decanting process. The colder White wine will decant faster.

With the Paso Robles GSM type wines I’ll open the night before quickly decant, put it back in the bottle and re-cork. By the next night it is wonderfully smooth. For older Cabs I’ll open late morning and just put the cork back in. Maybe an hour before drinking I’ll decant.