I’m going to dinner this weekend for white truffles. I was thinking about bringing an 89 Conterno CF. does this bottle require a double decant ?
I’d gladly double decant it for you 
It is a fantastic wine. Not sure how it was treated when I attended a CF vertical but it was the wine of the night, slightly edging out the 96.
Enjoy Nick!
Yep. I certainly would as well, both for sediment and for air.
I’d double decant it at 10 am for service at 8pm.
+1
And expect greatness.
Greg and Ken-
I realize you guys have a lot of experience with Barolo, but I’ve never really understood these super long decants and have never had them produce “magical” results.
What’s the thinking behind this and is there any science at all?
I can only guess, but I have had spectacular results with this technique.
My guess is that traditional Barolo in particular, though this works very well with old Rioja, Cabernet based wines not so much, is pretty slow when it comes to oxygen uptake. The long time in the bottle with oxygen post double decant allows for the oxygen to be absorbed by the wine, producing complex aromatic compounds while doing whatever it does to soften the tannins. I do not believe much polymerization can occur in a relatively short time, showing how little of the science I know here. By keeping the wine in the bottle while all this occurs you are effectively trapping the results in the wine. If you simply decant the wine the process is accelerated, depending on the surface area of the decanter, and the aromatic compounds that are created through oxidation are released over time instead of being transformed into the poetic bouquet.
That’s just my theory, but I’m sticking to it.
I guess I didn’t read Greg previous post. I would just open it in the morning, then double decant before leaving. DD first might be a bit much. If you go that way, I’d recommend maybe DD at noon.
Another approach is to open at noon, then check mid-afternoon. If it still seems tight then decant and leave in the decanter for a while.
Thanks for everyone’s feedback. That’s what I was guessing but was hoping for a different result. I’m going to have to call in some favors to bring this bottle in.
This is actually how I handle the majority of my wines that need a decant–nebbiolos, northern rhones, and many burgs. I know that may rub people the wrong way, and I know some folks don’t think that this oxygenates the wine much, but I agree with Greg. I think exposing the whole bottle to air start’s an oxygenation process that that continues when the wine goes back into bottle, yet being in the bottle prevents dissipation of odors.
Hi Nick,
You really want to make sure that you decant each and every Nebbiolo-based wine that has enough bottle age to throw up some serious sediment- nebbiolo sediment seems to retain all of the bitterness of the very young tannins better than any other variety, and you can produce an amazingly astringent example of deeply mellowed and velvety old wine by including the sediment in the mix in the glass. This consideration is above and beyond the extended need of oxygenation to really get nebbiolo-based wines to blossom fully before serving that Greg and Ken went into- which is also really key to fully enjoying a monument such as the '89 Cascina Francia. I do not know if you have had this wine, but this is a major, major bottle of Barolo and it is absolute insanity to think of drinking it without having the ability to work the logistics necessary to squeeze every ounce of sublime potential out of this wine! If you are thinking of bringing it to a restaurant where they will only let you bring in an unopened bottle, the answer is simple- just give it the extended aeration during the day, double decant it before leaving, pound the cork (or a younger one that might have more elasticity) fully down into the bottle, and take off the capsule completely. It will loook like you have an unopened bottle with a low fill- if there are enquiries about no capsule, simply say you took off the capsule because the fill was a bit low (from your double-decanting a short time before)- but that the cork looked fine, so you are going to take a chance on the bottle 
It will be way worth it!
All the Best,
John
Ha great advice John. I did think about that. I happened to have worked with this restaurants DO many moons ago so I was thinking of calling in a favor.
Greg,
I’ve had great success double-decanting Bordeaux – including 20-25 year old Bordeaux – in the morning (then back in the wine fridge) for pouring in the evening. I believe I started doing this because this is what Parker said he does.
Ben
Might be the back in the wine fridge that does it. I just leave the bottles out since I am wine fridgeless. Slowing down the chemical reactions by cooling the wine makes perfect sense as I have found best success when double decanting Bordeaux about three hours before service.
Having attended verticals of Marcarini Brunate and G. Mascarello wines that Greg handled this way, I’m a convert to this method. The wines were magnificent in those cases.
I’ve done it with young Barolo and syrahs, too. Sometimes additional air seems to help, but the double decanting seems to do a lot without the risk of losing a lot of aromas, which can sometimes happen with extended conventional decanting.
But there’s always and element of the crapshoot to some extent.
Ah, interesting. Next time I open a serious Barolo, I’ll try your method of double-decanting, recorking, and then leaving out at room temperature.
Ben
Just so I understand…this is opening a bottle, decanting it into a container to get rid of the sediment and then quickly/soon pouring it back into the bottle? (If not quickly…how soon?)
We are drinking a 1978 Cavallotto Bricco Boschis Vigna San Giuseppe Riserva tonight at a restaurant. Dinner is at 8. I opened the bottle at 1pm, poured it into a clean wine bottle, and corked it to bring it home from my off-site storage unit. When I got home, I poured it back into the original (now cleaned) bottle at about 2pm. It’s now corked and sitting in the fridge for now. I’m going to take it out around 7pm to let it start warming up.
This is only my 3rd bottle of 1978 barolo, so I probably put way too much thought into the above procedure, but I’m a young guy and buying 1978 barolo at this stage is pretty much limited to special occasions (in this case, my wife’s 35th birthday).
This is what I do. Decant into a clean decanter, rinse the bottle then back into the original bottle.
Is this the death knell of the Audouze method? To me, the key point is that old Nebbiolo can indeed throw off some bitter and nasty dregs, and like others above, my experience has been that the sooner you separate the wine from the dregs after oxygen hits the wine, the fresher and better the wine is likely to be. For that reason, the double decanting with the initial burst of oxygenization, followed by slow oxygenization in the bottle (recorked or uncorked, as one chooses) seems to yield the best result. I have had the best results recorking, but I usually drink my wines over the course of extended meals, and I prefer that the wines have something in reserve to reveal over the course of the meal. I am sympathetic to pop-and-pourers or decant-and-drinkers, who are going for the same evolution in the glass experience, but with the great ageworthy wines, especially Nebbiolo, the risk is simply too great that the meal is over before the wine struts its stuff.