Sorry, François I did not mean to hit a nerve. I still doubt but then it’s impossible to be sure without a control, and bottles of that kind of age by definition, are always going to be very different. FWIW, one of my wine groups did the experiment with 2 bottles of Beringer Private Reserve 1977 (although we didn’t pour directly into glasses but decanted both wines). The wines were very similar, but the slow oxygenated tired much more quickly in the glass than the pull cork and pour method.That is obviously not going to be anything close to definitive, as François’ wines tend to be older than thirty years, and didn’t go through a decant.
How about the second part of my question. You are oxygenating the top half of the wine, but not the bottom, so the first glass is likely to be very different to the second. Decanting would average out the difference, but you are advocating pouring straight into the glass from the bottle. Have you noticed any differences, and if so, would you want to be the first pour or the last one?
Someone posted recently on oxygen dispersion in a liquid. Basically, as I recall, there is very, very little penetration of oxygen into a wine from the surface – even a large surface like a decanter. If you siphoned wine into a decanter to minimize the introduction of air, merely sitting in the decanter won’t introduce a lot of air.
A fortiori, merely pulling the cork gently and exposing the surface of the wine in the neck does not introduce a significant amount of oxygen into the wine. That’s why it’s a misnomer to call Francois’s method “slow oxygenation.” It’s more “gentle evaporation of unpleasant volatiles,” I guess.
The logic of the diffusion of the undesirably molecules without oxygen penetration makes sense to my physics-trained brain: molecules can only diffuse in a medium of similar density, and furthermore, they can’t diffuse against gravity. So the O2 molecules probably just bounce of of the surface, the slower ones will interact just with the surface layer, but if there’s nothing driving circulation, then that’s all the farther the oxygenation will go. The undesired molecules have a chance of escaping from the surface, albeit slowly (perhaps aided by the bombarding O2 molecules) and that sets up a gradient in the concentration of those species that will tend to drive more toward the surface.
I totally respect Francois’s method, and though I have nowhere near his experience my tendency is to believe him 100%.
This thread does lead me to one question, though: what is it about the method which bears his name that allows the bad molecules to escape but not the good ones? Do the bad ones escape more quickly? Are there just so many more good ones that it would take that much longer for them to leave?
Or do they have a structure that is different that means they leave more slowly, if at all. as compared to the bad ones?
I open the Grands Echezeaux Domaine de la Romanée Conti 1974 with a level at four centimeters under the cork which is very suitable. The cork is black on its upper half, black dust having crumbled under the capsule, but the bottom part of the cork is sound. The first smell is quite acid, not very engaging. Alas, I only returned from the office an hour and a half before the meal so the time will be short for the wine to resurrect.
At the moment of serving, I feel that the wine is tired. There is the grace and discreet subtlety of the wines of the Domaine but under a veil of fatigue and a slightly excessive acidity. My son is much more forgiving than I am. In the second pass of service, the wine pleases me much more. He is improving at a great pace and I regret not having given him the four hours of opening that would have changed everything.
And it is in the third pass that the wine finally reaches what it must be, that is to say, a graceful wine, all in delicate suggestion. There is the salt that puts me back in the furrows of the wines of the Domaine and finally pinot noir expresses itself with a nice rasp. Phew, the wine has reached its goal. When I pour the lees, I have a full, straight, frank wine, with a beautiful Burgundian expression of a graceful year. What a pity not to have opened it as it should have been.
My most tolerant son loved him from beginning to end. So much the better since it was for him.
There are some bad things like reduction (sulfur compounds) and some scents that appear at first to be oxidization but aren’t. Those often (but not always) dissipate (i.e., evaporate) relatively quickly. Don’t ask me why.
Of course, sometimes you get a fabulous burst of wonderful aromas when you first pop the cork. You may not experience that if you decant and let the wine sit. Other times a wine requires air before you get anything. Sometimes you get a burst of good stuff at first, then the wine gives little for an extended period, until it’s had more air and opens up again. Is the second round of aromas a function of oxygen contact? Perhaps.
I think there’s a confusion in many discussions here: People seem to assume that the only thing that is going on when you open a bottle is some oxygen reaction. From what I know (and I’m no chemist), that’s only part of it, and probably doesn’t occur instantly. In fact, there’s a second thing going on: What you get at first opening are good and bad aromas that evaporate out of the wine relatively quickly. I don’t know, but I’d guess that oxygen has little or nothing to do with that.
(As a footnote, Jamie Goode wrote an article a year or so ago where he explained why sweet wines, and sweet rieslings, particular, are so vastly more aromatic than dry ones. He explained that the wine is so saturated with sugar that dissolved or suspended aromatic compounds that can evaporate do so rather dramatically. I’ve just opened up his new book on the science of tasting wine, “I Taste Red.” I hope to be better informed about all of this soon.)
I prefer to answer by examples of what I experience day after day than with scientific explanations.
You can probably imagine that in a wine which is opened after decades and decades, perfumes which do not usually belong to it evaporate more quickly than the perfumes which belong to it.
Here’s what Fred Chien posted in another recent thread about decanting and oxygen penetration into a wine in a decanter (the upshot of which is that there is precious little – most of the oxygenation occurs from pouring, swirling, etc.):
My college chemistry is a bit rusty so here is a site with a calculator that calculates how long it takes for oxygen to diffuse across water. The below calculator is for water at 25 degrees C.
The interesting thing is that 12 hours of slow ox will get you about 1.3 cm of oxygen diffusion across water.
The surprising part is that it takes 165 hours (almost 7 days) for oxygen to diffuse across 5cm of fluid (depending on what kind of decanter you use). So really you could say that even 3-7 hours in a decanter doesn’t do much in terms of “oxygenating” a liquid such as wine.
Obviously temperature plays a factor, we’re talking wine vs water, wine containing alcohol that will evaporate, etc. but it’s interesting when you bring science into it.
It’s answers such as these which drive me to accept your method and embrace your approach; I only wish I could be by your side during some of these tasting experiences.
question for Francois : the 4 hours , is that the same for Bourgogne and Bordeaux ? What about Barolo ? And what about old whites ?
Thank you , Francois .
Exactly but not entirely. It’s not always the case the the volatiles are unpleasant and if they’re not you’d want to lock them in by putting a clean (and it goes without saying, untainted) cork in.
Absolutely, why brutally shake up the components? If the content is fine and the old wine smells great, it should be given time to get accustomed to the ambient ox, hence rather re-cork or wineshield it.
Younger or more tannic wines will likely do better with much more time. in my experiece. Bordeaux and Barolo, for instance (and Brunellos), can be opened as much as a day beforehand! ,assuming the wine is from a good vintage and less than say 50 years old. For instance, I recently opened a 1970 Montrose about 6 hours before serving, took out a tiny initial taste, to enlarge the surface area a bit and get an “educational” initial taste, then just kept it cool (quite important too, in how a fine older wine will show!). It was still rather “youthful” and robust after those 6 hours. In retrospect, that particular wine probably would have done well with 12 hours or more of slow-O. Though a '70 Montrose is not exactly a “typical” 45-year-old wine! A very sturdy wine from a very sturdy vintage! You have to take into account the age, body, vintage characteristics, etc., to estimate how much time will be best… Younger, fuller-bodied, more tannic wines need more time. But then, I try to avoid opening those altogether!
If you take seriously what Fred Chien said (quoted above in post #28), then there is essentially no oxygenation in the bottle, even with a little wine drawn off and left out for 12 hours.
My own experiences are that time does matter, a lot. Going only by the changes that occur, say in a middle-aged Burgundy (where the changes can be rather dramatic, and more noticeable than with typically fuller-bodied and more tannic Bordeaux), it certainly seems to me that “something” is happening throughout the wine, and not just the evaporation of off odors, etc.
What I mean is this - Francois usually deals with very old wines, whereas I do not. I try to let wines age as much as I can, but I only have a handful of Burgs from the 70s left, for instance. So I may be dealing with a 1989 or a 1990 if I am lucky, and maybe a '96 or '98 if I’m looking for trouble.
Also, I don’t think my nose is all that sensitive, because I only tend to notice the aroma of a wine when it is really outstanding. What I look for is changes in the balance, structure, depth, and complexity of a wine as it changes with “air time”. With Burgundies in particular I see a good wine gain considerable depth and complexity compared to what I taste initially in that small sample taste I take out from the freshly opened bottle. So it certainly seems to me that “something” is going on throughout the bottle that oftentimes dramatically improves a basically “good” wine into one that is outstanding. I.e. one that is mediocre or badly flawed to start with may not blossom, although sometimes they do!
So I judge by overall flavor, depth, and compexity, rather than by “aromas”. ???
With a subtle and fine reasonably aged Burg, I find that decanting usually “blunts” the wine somewhat, i.e. it can over-soften it in a rather undelicate manner…
I think it’s as least as likely that the act of pouring it in the glass is what improves it. Because that does introduce oxygen, and it encourages more aromas to emerge.
Pouring certainly introduces more air exposure, but the changes I see also happen as time goes on, ie. the last glass poured, a couple hours after the first glass, is likely to be much better! Both glasses have been “poured”, but one considerably later than the first…
Some of these same aspects of a wine, i.e. depth, flavor, balance, complexity, etc., also can change rather dramaticall with even a small change in serving temperature. That factor obviously affects the whole bottle…
